Hey Pretty
by Moonchild10
Summary: Things are beginning to change after the defeat of the Brotherhood. Raven knows it is inevitable, but change isn't supposed to turn her world upside down...change isn't supposed to make her feel these things she can't explain.
1. Things Change

**Disclaimer: I don't own TT.**

**This is a story I've been working on for quite a while. I'm having some writer's block in Confutatis Maledictis, so it might be a while longer before you get an update. I know I wait forever to give you all updates, but if you want to read my stuff right away, it's all on my deviantART. My name's tatteredmemory on there. **

**Hope ya like this story! It's rated for some 'mature' elements. If you can't handle them, don't read it. **

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It seems we've been the Teen Titans since before I can remember. It's always been us…the five of us. Robin, the leader, the one who keeps a cool head in the worst of situations and always has a solution to the worst problem. Cyborg, the easygoing, full-of-life half-robot with the ability to make anyone see things from a calm, rational point of view. Starfire, the effervescent, tirelessly positive alien with peacemaking skills Mother Theresa would envy. Beast Boy, the joker who seems to be able to laugh his way through anything even if the world is threatening to shove him into the ground. And me, Raven, "the goth", the voice of reason in any ridiculous conversation, the one people turned to for steady realism and anything but a candy-coated version of the truth. We've always been that way, we've always had our roles, our friendship, our team. We've always been, aside from the occasional freakout or threat of all existence being wiped out, relatively normal by our own standards. And that's where we stood. That's the way things were, without change, without a hiccup in our comfort-worn grooves. Our lives grew relatively predictable, not so much a boredom as a comfort. But then, there was that summer. That summer that changed everything, starting with small, subtle changes that meant nothing at first. It was where they led us that mattered.

Up until that point, we were strictly superheroes. Five teenage, super-powered friends living together in a giant T in the middle of the bay. We were always so platonic, so concerned with our superhero duties and with staying just close enough to be comfortable with each other. And so it was needless to say that before that summer none of us were much governed by our hormones, as strange as it may sound since we are, in fact, teenagers. Well, our actions were never much governed by hormones, though I have no idea if the others' thoughts were or not. Who knows? Who cares? Myself, I was never really a fan of feeling much of anything, living in constant fear of my father's ever-present influence over me. Not until his defeat did I relax and start enjoying the fact that I could feel whatever I wanted, lust after whatever I wanted, and get used to the absence of fear thinking thoughts that even loomed close to the concept of sex, which I can admit I didn't think of much, anyway, even after I was released from my emotional 'prison', having always been relatively uncomfortable with the whole thing.

That summer was the one where things were slowly shifting back to normal. Late that autumn, my demon father, Trigon, had attempted to wipe out human existence. And then, just as things were settling down, the Brotherhood of Evil, a (very obviously) sinister organization bent on some type of world conquest, as all irritating cults of their kind are, had started up a horribly overdone plan of destruction. It took us the better part of the winter and spring to, along with the Doom Patrol, Beast Boy's (or should I say Garfield's?) former team, finally bring them to justice.

And so, as the last traces of spring faded, we had made our way back home to Jump City just before the start of summer.

**XXX**

It was so much different than any of us remembered. The city we knew was gone, and in its place stood a war-torn ruin. Fallen buildings, crushed like the fragile skulls of newborns, bits of debris littering the once immaculate streets. We stood in awe of the depressing sight at the heart of downtown, beside the sagging pile that had once been our favorite pizza place, none of us speaking for the first few minutes. Robin and I were safe, our reactions hidden, his behind the white-and-black spandex of his mask and mine beneath the shadows of my hood, which I pulled up immediately as we stopped to look at what had once been home. Robin just had his normal look of neutral sternness that he assumes in unpleasant situations. But the other three Titans were open books. Cyborg's face held a kind of solid, sturdy grimness and the first stages of acceptance at what had become of our city. Starfire's was one of complete and utter sadness that she did not even attempt to conceal as she took in the broken buildings. And Beast Boy's was one that I had not expected: complete disbelief. He stared around at the surroundings with such a look of incredulity that I almost felt sorry for him. He shook his head several times, blinking, mouth open a fraction as though he were whispering words that never got to the stage of making any real sound.

"This _can't _be Jump City," he said after we watched it in silence for a few moments.

"Well, it is, deal with it," I said, surprised at my abrupt harshness that I had grown much better at not using much lately. But it was too late to say anything about it now, and I don't really do apologies very well, so I crossed my arms and assumed a look of apathy, surveying the spider web cracks in the street around us from under my mask of shadows where I knew I was safe from him, from anyone and everyone. Under that hood I could feel what I really felt. I was getting so good at wearing my heart on my sleeve lately, expressing my emotions on any given situation freely, almost more so than the others, but with things like this I had to regress back to my old ways of hiding everything, never letting them see. What I felt at the time was a kind of strange, painful ache, that feeling you get when you've lost something very, very precious and you know that even if you get it back it just won't ever be the same, you can never quite replace that feeling it had before, and you know at that moment that you'll never get that feeling back again in quite the same way.

Usually when I made a comment like this at Beast Boy he would get offended and snap back, and we would get into an argument. We really got into some bad ones during the whole Brotherhood fiasco. But to my surprise, he didn't. He just moved over closer to the rubble of the pizza place, away from us, and hunched his back a little, his response to something when it didn't make him feel enough of anything to really react. And it scared me, always scared me when he got like that. I walked directly over to him and placed a hand on his small shoulder from behind. He didn't jump: he knew I was there.

"Are you okay?" I asked him, allowing my voice to show my concern, the flood of emotion actually provoking a response in him. But he didn't give me the guarded 'Leave me alone!' I expected or the fake, cheerful, 'Sure' that I half-expected. He just whirled around in a burst of spontaneity and pressed himself up against me, pressing his cheek into my chest. It wasn't even really a hug, his arms didn't go around me or anything, it was just…I don't even know what you would call it. A desperate attempt to do something, anything, cease a restless confusion he might have been feeling, I don't know. I've never been able to fathom what goes on in that boy's head. I was so shocked that I didn't know how to react, and the kid didn't move. I stood there just…waiting for him to go away, but he didn't. He just stood there, torso trying to melt into mine, wanting one of those deep, comforting hugs that I had no idea why in the world he would think that I would ever give him, and not budging. Being almost as stubborn as me. I stood there motionless as a rock but somehow that boy never could take a hint, whether it was about me not thinking his jokes were funny or about this, no matter how obvious I made it. And so I did what I always do just for him for some reason I don't even know: I gave in. I lifted my arms and hooked them around him in the most awkward hug he's probably ever gotten, clumsy from lack of practice, worse than the time I grabbed onto him in the hallway after…Malchior. But he didn't even seem to care how stupid it all was, he just started clinging onto me like a little kid, trembling, and leaving me with nothing to do but hug him ineptly and pray that he would just stop it. He didn't.

It took a few minutes of this strange, awkward hug (if you would even call it that), a few minutes of me feeling unfathomably uncomfortable with him pressing into my breasts and all, before he finally backed off. I don't remember a time when I've been more thankful to be separated from someone. It was strange, though, as I watched him retreat and look back toward the rubble of the city, how even though his actions had made me uncomfortable, was there some part of me that had enjoyed him pressed up against me, a part of me that had always liked it although I pushed him away, told him to stop, glared at him unmercifully? Was there a part of me that liked that it was always me he came to, me who he hugged for a good reason or for no reason at all, and no one else? There always had been some small pleasure in knowing that I was the only one he was comfortable embracing.

And I wondered all of it again later as we worked on repairs on the city. There hadn't been as much damage done as it had initially seemed. Several buildings were smashed beyond repair and needed to be rebuilt entirely, but others, including the pizza place, could be saved with some minor repair. Part of the ceiling of the Tower had caved, and Cyborg had it half fixed already, after only several hours of our work. We were assisting the construction crews in the city's restoration, something Robin had insisted would be good for all of us. He and I were working on patching up the west wall of a bank. I lifted a large blob of repair material with a careful cloud of black psychic energy and pushed it against the wall, and Robin smoothed it out with a flat tool and we repeated the process. Pushing a strand of violet hair behind my ear and wiping a smudge of the gooey stuff from my cheek, I watched Beast Boy painting a newly repaired post office with some cream colored paint across the street and wondered all about my earlier thoughts. I must have been drifting off, because I felt a tap on my ankle and looked down to see Robin looking up at me from a few feet below on the ground. I came back down to Earth (literally), landing on the sidewalk beside him and shading my eyes from the bright afternoon sun as we surveyed our work so far.

"Not half bad," Robin said with a nod, and I agreed. We were doing a surprisingly fast job on the repairs. We were working our backs off, after all. We'd barely had time to unpack out things from the T-ship and sit down for a few minutes in the Tower before we were off on our mission to start mending the city. I didn't mind it as much as I could have. It was a nice enough day, and I was getting to the point where I was actually starting to enjoy the sun.

"See, not everything has to change," Robin said to Beast Boy, who had come to stand beside us. "It just needs a little fixing up, and it'll be good old Jump City again."

"And anyway, it's not the city that makes a place home. It's the people. And we're all still here. We always will be," I reminded Beast Boy, offering a ghost of a smile, something not entirely common for me.

Beast Boy nodded. "Thanks guys. Uh…sorry I was being kinda cookoo earlier. I'm just kinda scared of stuff changing, ya know?" I nodded, taking in his partially relaxed, partially tense from earlier expression. It was about at that point that I realized that I couldn't stop staring at Beast Boy.

**XXX**

**I have about 7 chapters done, so I'll update really soon. (:**


	2. In Dreams

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

**Yay! Part/chapter/…whatever two! This is actually three chapters rolled into one, so I hope it's long enough to keep you all from trying to kill me because of how long I'm taking to post again, if that does happen. (; **

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I suppose you could say that was what started it all, but I think that was more just foreshadowing of The Changes. That was something that showed very subtly just what I was going to go through in the near future, but at the time I was too dense to realize it. I was too dense to do anything but pray to high heavens that I hadn't somehow developed a stupid crush on the thickheaded, overly-energetic green time bomb that was my teammate. But I had no idea at the time that the events of that day were only the beginning.

Personally, I think what really started the train of dominos that caused our lives to change, possibly forever, was a combination of two events, two events that took place within twenty minutes of each other. Neither of these events were very pleasant (well…at the time, anyway), and I can't deny how completely and utterly embarrassing they are. But they were the very beginning of what I discovered would be a long and bumpy ride caused by one horrible thing that, being a teen (even a half-demon one) I could not escape: hormones. Before then, I had been able to (for the most part) keep my feelings in check, and abruptness of it all startled me. We had finally finished the repairs on the city, and settled back into our old lives. This was the part where our lives were beginning to go back to normal. And it was nice. We were getting back into the constant rhythm of pizza on Saturdays, me reading and meditating, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Robin playing video games, Starfire doing God knows what, training every afternoon, fighting the occasional small criminal in the streets. I was starting to become comfortable again. And then, about a week after we had settled back down, it happened. I had been constantly losing a battle against myself about my continuously growing crush on a certain green changeling, and so I don't think anything could have possibly made matters worse than what happened.

The night started with the dream. It happened on what started out as an ordinary night and left me beginning to doubt my sanity. I fell asleep relatively early, a consequence of forgetting to add caffeine to my blend of herbs in my evening tea. It would have been a restful sleep if it had been dreamless. But then, there came the dream. It followed an ordinary dream, caught me off guard. It even started out normal. I was just sitting in my room and then he came in and then it started to trail away from the bounds of sanity. When I woke up, I forced my eyes open, staring straight up at the ceiling. I noticed a wetness and cursed lightly, knowing that this wasn't going to be good. I sat straight up in bed and discovered to my embarrassment that there was a wet spot on my sheets between my legs, one that had soaked out through my leotard and had most certainly come out of me. I knew full well that it wasn't urine, and sat there still a bit shaky as ghostly memories of my dream, still vivid, ran through my head. None of it vague, all of it crystal clear as though still happening before my eyes. Ghostly remembrances of his hands touching me, of my hands touching him, of his body warm to the touch of my hands and the touch of my own body. The feeling of him against me, on top of me, inside of me. Warm and shuddering…the kind of touch that had always seemed so forbidden…him building heat inside of me…

I don't know how other people think, it may be a normal occurrence to them, but it was most certainly not to me. This was just…not something that happened to me. Ever. Pulling my legs up to my chest and staring out the window at the empty nothingness of the bay, I cursed lightly. I felt so…unexplainably dirty. And the worst part was, nothing about the dream had been at all unpleasant. Jesus, wasn't I supposed to be a little disgusted that I'd had a dream about fucking Beast Boy, of all people? Wasn't he supposed to be the one that I couldn't stand? I just couldn't understand how so suddenly he had become the one person I could simply not stop thinking about, when there were plenty of other not quite so immature boys around. And maybe I never made this clear, but I don't do the whole 'crush' thing. I never usually think of someone this much. But when I was meditating, there was Beast Boy's face. When we were all in the living room watching TV, he was the one my eyes wandered to when I wasn't paying attention. In short it was all very, very stupid. And so now I sat there on my bed trying to sort out what I should be feeling about all of this. I decided to focus on more important matters, like the disgusting sticky mess I had made with my pathetic little wet dream that was sticking to my inner thighs and had soiled my leotard pretty obviously. It made me worry about who was doing laundry.

I crawled out of bed, away from my mucky sheets and to the door, in desperate need to shower all of this off. As I slunk down the hallway, I was self-conscious beyond all mortal reason. I was terrified of anyone else being in the hall. 'What if they smell it?' I wondered in panic. But I decided just to play it cool and hope no one came along. Reaching the bathroom door was a relief. Lifting one hand and enshrouding the door in psychic energy, it slid open and I entered, and would have immediately begun to undress if embarrassing thing #2 hadn't happened right then. I was not alone in the bathroom. In fact, Beast Boy was also in the bathroom, which wouldn't have been quite so bad except for a) I was covered with evidence of a pretty intense wet dream and, b) he was completely naked

Beast Boy stood there dripping for a moment. He had obviously just gotten out of the shower, and I was there staring at all 5-feet-something of uncovered Beast Boy body and everything that went along with it. And I mean everything. He stood there staring at me for second as though hoping I wasn't really there. I just stared back for a moment, frozen dead in my tracks, thinking that this was probably just about the worst thing in the world that could have happened just then. It was unclear which of us was the deer and which was the truck with the glaring headlights as we stood there petrified with embarrassment and terror at the situation. After we stood staring at each other for a moment of terrified silence, I could feel myself go beet red and my eyes zoomed for the floor as I backed away (more like stumbled), groping for the door. Both of us were stammering something unintelligible and he was probably blushing almost as much as I was as I got out of there as quickly as I could, and actually ran for my room. When I got there I leaned against the door and shook my head several times, unable to free myself from the image of Beast Boy standing there wearing…nothing. And unable to stop hating myself for not disliking the image. Great, the only thing that could have possibly happened that could make me feel even dirtier than I had before. I don't think I could have felt any more perverted if I had groped him.

Trying to focus on mundane tasks, I slipped out of my leotard and underwear and exchanged them for fresh, unsoiled ones. Then I stood there with the dirty clothing in my hand, desperately searching for something to do with it. I ended up balling it up and shoving it under the bed, deciding to wash it myself when I had laundry duty. I was so desperately afraid that he would find out. The feelings of the dream were harder to wash away than the images and the cum. The way it had made me feel scared me. How being so close to him had brought some kind of ecstatic feeling of belonging. Being generally close to him had, not the fucking part. I'm not that perverted. At least I don't think I am.

I didn't want to think of anything anymore, at least not anything like that. And so I returned myself uneasily to sleep, praying that it wasn't going to force me into another god forsaken sex dream. I didn't want anymore of that on my sheet.

"Goddamn you," I muttered to whatever side of me had decided it was a good idea to dream about doing that with Beast Boy, that secret part of me that really wanted him that badly, and that part of me that (god forbid) really did want him in my pants.

I slept on the floor for the rest of night, just in case.

**XXX**

It was a few days after the incident before I left my room again. Over the years I had become quite the master of staying in my room for even weeks on end. And it was the good thing about being oh-so-very mysterious, I could do something so completely weird as stay in my room for a few days without making a single appearance and no one would really question it as much as they should have. This was because when I first joined the team, I had put forth a commendable effort to appear so dark and mysterious that everyone would just back off and leave me the hell alone. And it worked pretty well, I think, though I'm guessing Robin knew almost straight off that it was all an act to hide who I really was and saw through it in a moment. And the others figured it out eventually, too, especially after the whole Trigon thing. But there was still such ghost of the whole 'mystery girl' thing hovering over me, and so they never really questioned my strange and sometimes almost inappropriate behavior.

I spent the next two or three days sitting on my bed in a bra and some pajama pants I found in the closet, chewing things over, building card houses with my powers, and generally just being terrified of what would happen if I was faced with Beast Boy again. I didn't eat for all that time. I normally need to, but when I start neglecting my basic human needs, my demon side kicks in and since that side doesn't need food, I can survive for quite a while this way. The only downside is that when my demon side is the one I'm living off of I tend to get a little case of 'PMS' the entire time. Not that I don't usually have one, according to some people. But you'd have an attitude problem too if you had to live with 3 teenage guys 24/7. It's not exactly a picnic.

And so I went undisturbed for three days until I was finally drawn out of hiding by a knock on the door. I ignored it. For a while. I knew it was Robin by the way he refused to accept the fact that I was ignoring his attempts to intrude upon my blissful little embarrassment-free world. "Raven, open the door," he said calmly, and I could imagine him standing patiently with his arms crossed outside the door, waiting for me to give up on being stubborn and speak to him. I knew Robin, and he was most certainly not going to just go away. The whole ignoring thing would have worked on any of the other Titans, but not Robin. "I know you can hear me, Raven."

I sighed and went over to the door. If I humored him, he would go away. I didn't even bother putting a shirt over my bra, because if there's anyone who I know that couldn't see anything to lower their opinion of me any further, it's Robin. He's been my best friend pretty much since I came to Earth from Azarath, and if he ever thinks perverted thoughts about me, he keeps them to himself.

Sure enough, he didn't flinch when he saw me. He was all business. "Raven, you've been in here for three days. When were you planning on coming out?" he asked me, arms crossed, in that classic Robin stance that says 'I know exactly where I stand and nothing anyone says is going to change that'.

"I was thinking maybe next June," I said, letting the sarcasm run freely from my lips, rivers so long dammed by my solitude finally breaking forth and rushing on in their usual path.

"I'm serious," Robin said, though he didn't need to say it, it was pretty obvious by his expression and tone. It always is. It's why he's such a bad liar.

"I don't know," I admitted, shuffling my feet a bit.

Robin was eyeing my hair disheveled from days without combing. I was probably a disgusting sight by now, it had been a while since I'd looked in the mirror. "I'm thinking you should come out now. Have you forgotten you have an actual life to tend to out here?" he asked.

"What if I don't feel like tending to it? What if this life suits me better?" I asked him, just to piss him off. He sighed like a tired father but his unending patience with me was still resilient. Sometimes I really wonder how he puts up with me and my dysfunctional self. I had to hand it to him, he never would give up on me, and the least I could do was humor him. "Okay, okay, I'll be out soon," I said.

"Good," Robin said, no longer looking quite so tired. "See you then." and I let the door shut. Now I was faced with the horrible dread of seeing Beast Boy. But it was something I would have to do sooner or later, and so I forced myself to get dressed. I wasted as much time as I could in the shower and then took way more time than I thought was humanly possible combing my hair, which would have been a lot more effective if I've had a little more hair to comb. I've always been horrible at stalling, and the living room was not far away.

"Yo Rae, where have you been? We were worried you died," Cyborg said when I entered the living room, giving me a cheerful smile as usual. Sometimes he was as bad as Starfire with that whole overwhelming joy thing, but I had to admit that happy people are extremely talented, being able to keep that positive idea about the world through all the shit that happens. I gave him a nod and a fair approximation of what I hoped was a friendly smile before I made a beeline for the sofa and sat down on the farthest end. Starfire beamed at me, but I'm sure the smile I gave back was more of a grimace.

Beast Boy was a few feet away down the enormous expanse of sofa. I caught his eye for a moment, and I think both of us wanted to crawl under a rock and die right about then. We sat in awkward silence for the longest time. I think the rest of the Titans probably wondered what was going on. But there was no way I was going to tell them.

It wasn't until later that I really had to face Beast Boy. I hadn't had to say a word to him all afternoon, and I was starting to think I was home free. But then, of course, when I was headed off toward the kitchen after the others, thinking of getting some herbal tea and maybe an apple or something, a hand clamped onto my arm. I jumped about six feet into the air and whirled around, ready to blast the evil owner of the hand to pieces. When I realized that it was only Beast Boy I dropped my hands, the energy at my fingertips fading away back into my internal well of power.

"Can we talk?" he squeaked. I had half a mind to laugh at his voice because he sounded so ridiculous when he was nervous, but I pushed the laugh back down and gave a solemn nod, at which he dragged me over to the wall. There was something strange about him touching me now, even if it was just a steering hand on my wrist. Strange but nice. I liked the way it felt despite the awkward situation. "Um…ya know what happened a few nights ago?" he asked. I raised an eyebrow. Did he seriously think I was going to forget something like that?"

"Yes," I answered.

He rubbed the back of his head. "Well, I just want to make sure…ya know….that we're still cool?"

I raised an eyebrow once more. "Um…yes, we're I said in my normal apathetic tone. I felt bad for him. I'd never seen anyone look more embarrassed in my life as he stood there rubbing the back of his head like he had OCD or something. I decided to save him and change the subject,

"So what were you doing taking a shower at that time of the night, anyway?" I asked. He shrugged.

"I dunno. Just couldn't sleep, thought it might help."

"I see." this conversation was going nowhere and I wanted desperately for it to be over. I think he did too, because he ended it abruptly.

"Well, I'll talk to ya later, then," he mumbled, his discomfort at talking about the situation that still loomed over our heads like a storm cloud extremely evident. "Glad we're still okay." He hadn't mentioned anything about how horribly embarrassing it had been for both of us or how I was now that much more familiar with his 'little friend', or anything of the sort. So it was true, sometimes he could control his mouth. I nodded gratefully and watched him head off to the kitchen, probably in search of something involving tofu. And as I stood there debating on whether I was in the mood for milk or tea, I told myself that it was all back to normal, it was like nothing had happened, and everything was just fine and dandy. But it wasn't, no matter what I told myself, and it never really would be.

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**More soon (: **


	3. In Sickness and in Health

**Disclaimer: No! I don't own TT**

**Well, finally the next chapter. Sorry it took so long. I've been multitasking _way _too much lately. I've become a slave to my drawing as well as my writing. **

**As far as Confutatis Maledictis goes, I'll update when I can figure out what's going to happen next. Sorry about the delay on that one. And as far as future stories go, I can already tell you I'm definitely considering a sequel to World Through My Eyes, but we'll just see. There, now you're all up to speed. **

**This is a nice long chapter, hopefully it'll keep everyone happy for a while (: I'll update ASAP. **

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Despite how I sensed things were going to be slightly different around him from then on, somehow, being as fiendishly immature as I was, I tried to pretend they weren't. Like the headstrong girl I was, I went on acting like I always had, making it seem like things hadn't changed at all. I acted normally, I went through that process of living as though that embarrassing night had never happened. Beast Boy, however, didn't seem to be following my lead in this whole 'pretend it never happened' plan of mine. He had always been rather self-conscious…around all of us. But now, around me, he acted like I was an atomic bomb liable to go off at any given second. I wouldn't have been surprised if I made a sudden movement and he just straight out shit himself. If this had been before the incident, some part of me would have found this whole thing extremely amusing. But I didn't. Instead, I found it really uncomfortable. Every time he was near, somehow I found myself wishing he would just go away, though now it was for different reasons than it had been back when I hadn't been able to stand being around him for more than five minutes without wanting to wring his neck.

And so I went along as though everything was normal. It was hard, but I had an iron will about the whole thing and I refused to let myself act like an immature child because of some stupid, thirty-second episode that might not have been a big deal if I was anyone else. But I wasn't anyone else. I was Raven. After some time, however, my acting like everything was normal paid off, because about a week Beast Boy stopped acting like he was in a cage with an angry cobra every time he was in the room with me and went back to acting normal. Well, as normal as he ever acted in the first place, anyway, which wasn't really saying too much, because as you've probably realized, the Teen Titans is made up of five complete and total freaks with no sense of normal in us. But that was always okay somehow.

So anyway, Beast Boy was normal, which was both good and bad. Good because he wasn't acting like I was going to bite him, and bad because he began incessantly pestering me once more. It got pretty irritating, especially when I was trying to read. Don't ask me why I complained about the other Titans' noise when I was reading in the living room instead of just going to my own room where it was quiet. I was just too damned stubborn for my own good. Beast Boy had been acting normal for about two days, and I was already at my wits end. It was strange, I had come to have feelings for Beast Boy (which I denied), but still he infuriated me. Frequently.

I was sitting on the sofa, attempting to concentrate on my book, some freakish but beautiful 17th century macabre romance novel, and when Beast Boy came bounding over and landed on the sofa beside me, I tried to ignore him and the impulse to jump in shock at his sudden appearance. He laughed at me, or maybe just laughed, I have no idea, and rather than grabbing the remote he just sat down next to me and stared. I could feel his eyes on me, those emerald spheres that never let anything I said or did get by them, burning into my flesh, boring down into the bone beneath, probing, prying, and all he was doing was looking at my face.

"Do you want something?"

I felt him shrug. "Not really."

"Then you can go. I'm reading."

"Oh come on, is it so wrong for me just to want to be around you?" he asked. If he was wanting me to look up from my book, he was out of luck. I continued to stare fixedly down at my page, not really reading so much as just looking.

"Yes."

He shrugged again. I felt the motion as his arm knocked against mine. I willed myself not to blush at our slight impact. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" I asked.

"Nope."

"Well go find somewhere. I'm trying to read," I reminded him. He sighed.

"Aww, you're no fun," he muttered, a touch of a giggle in his voice. And then he leaned over and I could feel his presence way too close for comfort. And then I felt a pressure, a warm, gentle, soft pressure against my cheekbone as he kissed me. Instantly, every inch of my body was awake, every part of me was tingling and burning, the color and heat were rushing to my face, and my eyes were as wide as dinner plates. All of this took place in the two seconds that his lips touched my cheek. And then he pulled back, no explanation, no apology, nothing. Who did he think he was? I sat there staring down at my current page of my book, not really seeing the words, not really seeing anything, completely oblivious to everything around me.

"Beast Boy…what was that?" I asked him, as calmly as I could, torn between feeling completely ecstatic and wanting to send a good punch right into the middle of that little green face. I finally decided to lose my earlier battle and look up at him, and he didn't answer, just gave me a big Beast Boy grin and patted me on the top of the head like he was praising a puppy and then hopped off of the couch and walked calmly into the kitchen. I sat there in complete shock, staring after him, thoughts far too rampant to be turned into anything other than chaotic muttering. My powers hadn't gone out of control. Some part of me had always known that they wouldn't. The things I felt now, though…it was just too weird.

I had never, never reacted like that when he touched me before. Of course, it had never been a _kiss_ before, but that's beside the point. If it had been before the incident, I probably would have just gone right ahead and punched him. But I hadn't. And I really hadn't wanted to, to tell you the truth. This whole thing before had completely changed me. Could it be possible that that single night had suddenly reshaped my entire personality and changed the way I saw him forever? I think it had, I really, truly think it had. The whole thing had definitely had a huge impact on me, that's what I knew for sure.

I don't know, maybe I was being a bit melodramatic. Maybe to some people, seeing a friend of the opposite sex in their birthday suit is no big deal and they can laugh it off together and it'll be some big joke the next day. But for us, it was different. Beast Boy and I were never really close. Our friendship was always pretty shaky, maybe because from the beginning we had never really established where we stood as far as the nature of our friendship. It was never certain to either of us whether it was completely platonic with no possibility of anything more, or if someday we might be a little more than friends. As much as I used to try to deny it, there had always been a bit of an attraction between us that I sensed, I don't know if he did. I could tell, as much as I disliked it, that he'd had a crush on me back before Terra. I guess he moved on or something when she came along, sort of gave up on me, which probably hurt more than I allowed myself to feel. It was my own damn fault anyway, but I digress. So anyway, we couldn't exactly laugh it off the way close friends could. We were always pretty awkward around each other, especially after the incident, and then what happened when I got sick made matters worse.

It was close to two weeks after the incident. I'm not sure if it really contributed to that thing that may or may not have been a mistake coming to pass, but it definitely left me in no doubt of my feelings for him. Thinking back, I guess it boosted my confidence enough to attempt…and succeed at…what I eventually initiated. It was definitely a strange situation, at least. It was when things were starting to go a bit more normally for me, though being around Beast Boy was still a bit awkward for me.

I hadn't been getting as much sleep as I should have. That dream hadn't come back too much, just a few times. But I was so worried about it appearing again and so I'd been staying up all night far too often. The consequence of this came clear one night. I woke up with beads of sweat peppering my forehead but my body freezing cold and unable to stop shaking. Well…it might have been because of lack of sleep, though I have large suspicions that it was indigestion due to the fact that we all (at Robin's suggestion, of course, since he is so hopelessly smitten with her) decided to be nice and try the cake that Star baked. How were we to know Tamaranian digestive systems were able to handle rather inedible ingredients, like dirt and rocks for example? And I could have sworn there was some tree bark in there.

I had just awoken from a twisted dream that made no sense, and at first I thought I was simply spooked from the dream, but then the feeling refused to ebb with the memories of the dream…I think I'd been falling in the dream. Trying to ignore the threatening rolling in my stomach, I crawled out of bed, horribly disoriented, and stumbled to the door. 'Water. That's all I need…' I thought to myself. The kitchen was too far away…I remember something about looking around for a taxi before I realized there were none. When I realized this I almost burst into tears. Needless to say, I was pretty delirious to be acting this way. I managed to get down the hallway most of the way before I slammed into the wall, somehow thinking I could get through it without using my powers. I didn't back away when I hit it, either, I stood there, staring it down, because it felt good on my hot forehead.

It was about thirty seconds before the door next to the wall where I had slammed into opened and someone came out. "Raven?" asked Beast Boy's voice. He turned me around to make sure I was alright and I slumped on him, almost knocking him over with my dead weight.

"I need a taxi," I murmured.

"Dude, are you drunk?" he asked, sounding a little shocked. I was still normal enough to shake my head, and so he felt my forehead rather than pursue the subject of my supposedly being drunk. "Whoa, you've got a huge fever!" he said, sounding even more surprised than before. He got his hands awkwardly under my arms to hold me up and looked around, seeming to be searching for some kind of solution to the situation. "I guess there's no point in waking anybody else up," he said.

"Garfield, I really need to get a taxi," I told him, swaying dangerously, to the point where he could barely support me and we both almost collapsed. He shook his head after both of his feet were planted safely on the ground.

"What you need is some water," he said. "Come on, let's get you into the living room." I guess that was the point where I decided a taxi wasn't the best idea and allowed him to half-carry, half-lead me into the living room, where he somehow managed to get me onto the sofa. I sat there limply and slumped against the back of the sofa, the dangerous rolling in my stomach getting worse. "I'll be right back, okay?" Beast Boy asked. He disappeared, and I became suddenly terrified, sitting and staring in horror around at the dark living room until he emerged with a pitcher, a glass, a bottle of aspirin, and a worried expression. The pitcher turned out to be full of water, and he poured me a glass and tried to help me drink it, but I was so desperate to get some liquid that I ended up spilling half of it down my leotard. It took a few minutes before we were able to get a few glasses of water into me and my ravenous thirst was satisfied. Beast Boy flopped down on the sofa beside me and sat there with me for a while, and eventually I came back to reality from delirious land. I guess drinking something brought my fever down a bit, because I was able to think relatively normally soon. Though that rolling in my stomach continued and my entire body was sore and weak still, at least I could think.

"Thank you," I said finally after we sat in silence for a short while. I couldn't recall Beast Boy every being quite so on top things before. He had actually taken charge of this situation, which I found surprising and nice all at once. If it weren't for him I would still be stumbling like a drunk all over the hall or lying on the floor trying to figure out how to fly a jet plane in my delirious trance.

"Uh…sure," Beast Boy replied with a shrug.

"I've never really been sick before," I said as though I needed to explain. "Not like this, anyway. I usually just get colds." I was strangely embarrassed, and I wasn't sure why I felt I needed to be. Maybe because this was the first time I had been alone with him since…well…you know. It felt strange to have him more or less taking care of me now…and I suppose it would have anyway. I was always one to take care of myself no matter how bad things seemed, and I was always reluctant to take help. Being sick is the natural human way for your insecurities to bite you in the ass, 'ha ha, you like to take care of yourself and be independent. Let's see how you like being helpless!'

He nodded as though he understood.

Suddenly, I became aware that the back of my tongue felt strangely furry and watery, and the rolling was getting worse. I was beginning to sweat. Frantic, I leaped to my feet, shaking legs giving way under my suddenly enormous weight and sending me sprawling to the floor in a heap. Beast Boy got up to help me with a partially understandable mutter of something that probably involved asking me what the hell I was doing. I didn't have time to accept his helping hand, instead getting myself up and staggering toward the kitchen like a wounded moth dragging its torn wings behind. I could hear Beast Boy following but it didn't matter then. Only one thing did: reaching the kitchen before the hell within my stomach unleashed itself…on the floor. I managed to get into the kitchen on a mixture of my feet and my knees when the dizziness overcame me too much. When I reached the heaven that was the sink, I pulled myself up onto my feet, clinging to the edge of the counter to support my burdensome weight as my body tried to strangle itself from the inside out like punishment for getting sick, and the contents of my stomach left their rightful place in favor of the kitchen sink.

It wasn't as disgusting as it could have been, since it was mostly water and tea, but still it made me feel appalled, though the horrible sick feeling had diminished greatly with the purging of my stomach-hell. I managed to wash the all of my expelled mouth-shit down the drain before I tried to turn around at all. When I did, of course Beast Boy was right there, and I was somehow embarrassed; he had seen me vomit. He looked a bit sickened but still reasonably paternal, and he managed to get an arm around my shoulders and drag my limp, feverish corpse back into the living room and get me some water and mouthwash to get rid of all the vomit taste. I really started to wish it had been Robin who had showed up and volunteered to take care of me, because then I would have been focusing on not throwing up on myself, but instead I was thinking about the fact that Beast Boy was touching me, and it was nice. And things should never turn into a big hormone-fest when you're that sick…trust me. Even without anything terrible happening involving vomit, I know something could have ended up happening. So he managed to get me back onto the couch, me acting like a smitten schoolgirl the whole time, thinking about how he had his arm around me. I blame those thoughts on my being delirious, but I do know that wasn't entirely the reason. I just hate admitting that I'm capable of acting like such a fool, but it was true…I was fool. A ridiculous, infatuated fool drooling over a guy who had just seen me regurgitate my last three meals into a kitchen sink. Oh yeah, that's attractive.

"You're probably just sick 'cause of Star's cake thing. I started throwing up before I went to bed, and I'm pretty sure I heard Cy and Robin a few minutes later. It'll go away fast, trust me," he said reassuringly.

I tried to concentrate on something of relevance…like my unpleasant condition. The fever was making me have the chills, and I was actually starting to shiver. I huddled down and wrapped my arms around myself, desperate to make the cold stop, but it wouldn't. What with the cold and the aches over my entire body, I was not a happy camper.

"Feeling better?" he asked. I tried to smile and nod, but somehow I could only manage a watery kind of gurgle and what probably looked more like a grimace. Beast Boy made a 'yeesh' kind of a face. "Dude, are you okay? You look horrible."

I would have ordinarily given him a sarcastic comment, but all I could manage was a sort of 'gyeh' noise. When I fail to find the ability to be sarcastic, you know things are definitely not right. "You're shaking a lot," he said. 'Gee, thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed' ran through my head but my mouth made no motion to form the words. My attempts to verbalize something…just _anything _came out as a pitiful little whimper that was more suited coming out of the mouth of a kicked puppy than out of mine. I knew how pathetic I sounded but I didn't care. "Wow," he said, obviously marveling over how indeed the mighty could fall. He sat still for a moment, and then I felt him move behind me, coming closer, snuggling in against me from behind and pulling me back against him. I was too bothered by my chills to protest or push him away. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, cradling me against him in a little nest of his body heat. "Better?" he asked. I couldn't muster the desire to speak, and only made another small noise, though being careful not to make this one sound unhappy. The heat of his body warmed me up quite a bit, and I was able to stop shivering. I settled my legs so they were bent and my knees pointed straight into the air, the same position he was in, with his on either side of me.

Beast Boy's hands unclasped themselves from around my stomach and moved up to my shoulders, pausing and tensing, making sure I wasn't going to slaughter him, and then began to squeeze and release my shoulders gently. I was a bit shocked at this sudden development and sat there in silence for a moment, wondering what the hell was going on.

"What are you doing?" I managed to squeak through my surprise.

"Uh…giving you a shoulder massage…sorta," Beast Boy muttered, a bit of shyness I couldn't recall hearing before creeping into the edges of his voice. "Thought it might help you feel better." he paused. "Do ya want me to stop?"

This was a dangerous question. I couldn't help but shake my head. "No, I don't." I just couldn't help myself. It just…well, I know it sounds ridiculous and childish, and it's no good reason for letting him touch me, for letting my guard down, but…it just felt nice. So nice. My mind didn't seem to be working properly, and I don't think it was completely because I was sick. In fact, my illness seemed to be completely gone, at least for the moment. I wouldn't have known, because I was having such trouble concentrating on anything but his hands, kneading my shoulders gently, the warm, undulating motions of his fingers rubbing my tense muscles, working hard knots into relaxed sinew. Nothing else found its way into my mind…only the warmth of his touch, the pure _pleasure_ of him touching me. I had never imagined I was capable of feeling this way.

Normally I would have been trying to get away from him…coming up with some kind of witty comment that would send him away in a second, but I didn't. I just couldn't bring myself to. It felt too nice…it was just too natural and unnatural all at once…sitting here in his lap letting him massage me. It wasn't like we were just too awkward friends who only knew each other because a crazy ex-sidekick in a cape decided to throw together a superhero team and wanted to include us for some strange reason. It felt more personal right then. Like maybe we were…soul mates. It almost felt (and remember now, I'm pretending that I did this all under the cover of deliriousness) like we were …lovers….(dammit, I used the 'l' word. I promised myself I wouldn't) And so I couldn't just pull away. This whole thing was so nice, in a strange kind of way. And so I just sat there and let him do it. His hands continued their soothing rolling motion, and I found myself lifting my hands and placing them lightly on top of his, not pressing hard enough to discourage him continuing rubbing me, just there, just for the sake of touching. God, I was glad he wasn't wearing any gloves. His skin was so warm against mine, and I had never imagined it feeling so smooth.

I leaned back against him, letting my back press into his front, melding together. It was unbelievably nice, and so I snuggled in closer, to the point where I felt I could have easily fused against him. Instinctively his legs squeezed against me, intimating our embrace even more. If I thought too much about the fact that my ass was pressed against…well…_you know_, I would have probably lost my mind completely right then and there. But I couldn't help but think about it. A little. Or maybe more than a little. I found myself rubbing my cheek against his shoulder, and I was surprised when he gave me a bit of a nuzzle back. I gave a small purr of contentment, which somehow turned into a kind of moan in my throat. It startled me a bit that such a noise had come out of me. I was crazy. But it didn't matter at the time. I could think of little but him and how close together we were.

"Garfield…" I muttered softly, feeling his breath on my hair. If he was displeased or surprised by my using his real name he didn't show it. The truth was, I thought the name Garfield suited him far better than Beast Boy did, it gave him a little more dignity than being referred to as a beast all the time, even if he _was_ named after a cat. I liked the name with that face. "Garfield." I whispered it again, turning around a little so I could stroke his hair. My touch was gentle, which surprised me, since I could never remember being anything but rough with him in the past. He didn't say anything in protest. He was very still and his eyes were closed, his hands still rubbing my shoulders gently. I turned myself all the way around and pressed myself against his chest. He still massaged me gently, eyes still shut. Pressing my face into his neck, I took in the feeling of his warmth against my cheek. I lifted my head a bit and my lips brushed against his jawbone in a ghost of a kiss, so faint I wondered if he felt it. But his lack of disgust, even if he hadn't felt it, heartened me a bit, and my face raised to be level with his as I, without thinking, without any time for doubt worry or fear, pressed my mouth into his in a deep, longing kiss. His lips were warm against mine, and I pressed myself against him harder, clutching his small shoulders tightly as I poured out my unspoken desires in that one wordless action.

His hands stopped moving on my shoulders and instead held onto them as anchors while he pushed me back a few inches, parting our lips from each other and making me give a small, embarrassing whimper. His large green eyes were even bigger than normal as he stared at me, mouth opening and closing with little silent gasps of surprise or disgust and God knows what other motivations.

"Raven, what are you _doing_?" he asked, still unable to keep his mouth closed. And it was then that I had time for doubts and fears, and my cheeks flushed immediately.

"I…" I began, but could think of no words to save myself.

"I know, it's okay," Beast Boy said. "You've still got a fever," he touched my forehead to confirm this. "I guess you're still delirious, huh?"

I only stared at him helplessly, neither confirming nor denying this suggestion, deciding it was best just to sit back and let his assumptions happen rather than damn myself further with more ridiculous actions.

"You need some sleep." he felt my forehead again. "Poor kid." and with that he scooted away from me and stood up. I sighed, humoring him and lying down. I grabbed a blanket from the back of the couch and covered me, and I mumbled my thanks, to which he nodded. "Get some sleep now. I'll just stay out here in case you need anything," he said, lying down on the opposite end of the couch and transforming into a kitten, curling himself into a ball against the back of the couch.

"Thanks," I croaked, still thoroughly embarrassed, still wanting to be close to him so desperately that it almost made me sick, as I reluctantly closed my eyes and made myself comfortable, forcing thoughts of him out of my mind.

Why did I want him so badly?

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**Come on, you knew I was a BBRae fluff-addict when you chose to start reading this story, it's your own fault (; **


	4. Sparks

**Disclaimer: Nooooooo!**

**I wrote this chapter in one sitting. Oog. My poor arms. Yay! You only had to wait a week! I'm not so terrible, am I? Enjoy! This one jumps around a bit, but remember, this story doesn't go in order of the times the events took place, so…yeah, you know. **

_**I'm sure you already know, but I think I forgot to mention it in the other chapters and I wanted to dedicate some special space in this intro to the glorious fact: **_

**Weee, Garfield Logan and Raven Roth are an official couple in the original Teen Titans comics. Yay for smoochie-face! (:**

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We didn't speak of the incident for a very long time. I think he wanted to go on believing I only kissed him out of deliriousness, but I never did know if he truly believed it at all. I just wanted to pretend it never happened when I was around him, pretend I didn't even remember, and I was fairly successful at this campaign. As you already know, we were never exactly comfortable around each other, so the others didn't suspect anything if we began acting even more awkward together. I don't know if we did. I was far too busy trying to convince myself that I could keep control ever myself when I was around him. I remembered far too many times as I lay awake at night or as my eyes flickered to him as we all sat in the living room, the warmth of his silken green lips, the soft, desperate, hot spark that ignited at that first second that our lips met. It was so hard not to remember, all those moment, the various times when we had been near to each other. I had always felt that subtle spark. Had he ever felt it? Did he know I felt it too? Did he ever feel it too? These questions and moments of remembering his closeness threw my mind regularly into disarray.

I threw myself into meditation on a regular basis, hoping it would help but knowing instinctively somewhere deep inside that it wouldn't. And so, I became even more pathetic than I had been before. My life suddenly consisted of meditation, basic human needs, and Beast Boy. There was nothing else. I started out with thinking about how badly I wanted to avoid him, and then pretty soon decided it was impossible, since we lived in the same Tower together, and then my thoughts went to concentrating on hoping that he didn't know how strong my feelings for him were. And so eventually around seventy percent of my thoughts began to center on him. I told myself over and over that it was a pointless crush, that nothing would ever come of it. I reminded myself constantly that we would never, ever have feelings for me back. How could he? I was pathetic. The way I handled situations was ridiculous. Everything about me was pretty much the opposite of what the average teenage male finds appealing in any way shape or form in a girl. And yet, despite all my internal struggle, despite all common sense, despite everything logical in me, my feelings for him continued to grow. The feelings intensified, to frightening levels that I didn't think were safe or possible for me to feel. And eventually it came to the point where my crush bordered on an obsession. And being the determined person that I am, obsession is a very dangerous thing.

I'm the kind of person that, when there is something I need, I will go to any levels to get it. If my friends are in danger, I am willing to go as far as it takes to get them out of it, even if it means going to extreme measures (namely: going demon on whoever or whatever is causing the threat) to save them. Because of this facet of my personality, I've always been constantly compared to Robin. I don't know if it's Robin or me who dislikes that more. But there is one difference between Robin and I. Robin's personal struggles are never exactly…well…secret. No matter what he does to try and keep them under wraps, they always seem to end up becoming a public display (just take his obsession with Slade, for instance, and all the hell it caused through those earlier years). But my struggles are mostly internal. I fight my battles inside with little help from anyone else. I can only think of a handful of times when they actually came out into the open, like the situation with Trigon or my little incident where my secret phobia for horror movies was revealed. And so I wage a constant inner war over whatever problem I happen to be facing and handle it on my own as long as I can. And so this was also the case now. My problems and issues with my feelings raged on behind my calm, collected façade just like they always did. It wasn't any worse than any other situation I'd handled, but for some reason it bothered me more.

A crush, for me, was one of the worst possible things that could ever happen. I like to be in control of my life, of myself, and of everything that affects me in some way. With a crush…well…it was something I couldn't control. In any way. It was just there, something I couldn't stop, something I couldn't change. It was like my own emotions were taunting me, hiding behind a wall and laughing as I repeatedly rammed the wall, trying to bring it down and destroy them, rip every single bit of this newfound tender emotion into only tattered memories of what I had once felt. I wanted him, but I resented it. I needed him, and yet I constantly wanted to deny it. A crush was something I couldn't stand being in the midst of, though I pretty much gave up on fighting it after a very short time. A crush meant change. A crush meant some part of you, while those feelings existed, was not the same.

I haven't always hated change. I'm one of those people who goes with whatever happens with a shrug and an indifferent nod. I face change with little concern…on the outside. But, as time went on, after the defeat of the Brotherhood, change became something that terrified me inside. There was one point in the long, grueling final battle that changed everything, changed everything for all of us in a more subtle way than the situations that this story focuses on. Though I said my feelings for Garfield were the beginning of the changes, that's not entirely true. Because during that battle we were all changed in a different way. A way that didn't really impact our futures, but it definitely impacted my thinking. There was a time during that battle where everything seemed completely hopeless. We had all been separated, initially to distribute communicators to potential honorary Titans all over the globe. We discovered that the Brotherhood was watching our every move…well, Robin discovered it. And so he cut all communication to foil further attempts by the Brotherhood to track our actions. And so there we were. All links between the Teen Titans were officially severed, we were dispersed in separate locations all over the planet, and Robin had been kidnapped and taken to the Brotherhood headquarters by Madame Rouge.

We were all so alone, so separated, and it was at that point that I later learned that all of us had doubted whether we were ever going to see each other again. Things had been bleak during the final battle with Trigon, but all of us had someone there with us, someone to keep us filled with hope that we could succeed and everything would be alright. And so we had been able to go on. But not this time. This time we were all alone. We had no way of knowing what was happening, or even if each other were alive. It was at that point when I almost shut down and lost it, at that time when Garfield went through a bit of an identity crisis, that point when Cyborg doubted his position as a superhero, and at that point when Starfire, for the first time I've known her, lost all sense of hope. I remember being a nervous wreck, sitting there and staring at what had once been my communicator but was now just the plastic shell and a small pile of the shattered mechanical parts that had been inside. I knew it wasn't going to work, that Cyborg wasn't going to send me any more briefings and Robin wasn't going to send me any further instructions, that Garfield and Starfire's periodical check-ups on my safety were no longer going to come crackling through. But I couldn't let it go. I had sat there, tracing the shape of the white T on the front, the symbol of the Teen Titans, who might all have been dead for all I knew. There was no one left to fight, I had no idea where to go, no more instructions on where to come and help in battle. It was hopeless. I had tried for hours to reach another Titan telepathically, but none were close enough. All were in different continents. I had been sure that I would never see them again.

And so now, the thought of change makes me queasy to some degree. The point when I almost lost them scares me even in a memory, and makes me want to keep everything the way it is and never change, makes me never want to let them go. Which was why this crush, this whole situation, made me very uncomfortable. The series of changes swept around me, altering things left and right, and making me wish I could make time stop again for one glorious moment and hold onto the things I had left that had not changed, that I doubted would ever change.

I found myself frequently remembering frequently how wonderful that reunion between the five of us had been after our long separation. I remember how I had found my discarded section of the T-ship somewhere among rubble of battlefields. It had been lying there for quite some time, since I hadn't visited it since I landed it when I went to assist Mas and Menos in a battle against Johnny Rancid a short time after the initial separation. The ship pod had depressed me at first, but then as I had climbed inside, just for somewhere to go, I had found something that didn't seem to possess the marks of being there long. It was a small red, round contraption imprinted on the front with a familiar letter T. Cyborg had fashioned new communicators for the five original Titans to find some way to keep in touch, with a different frequency than the old ones so that the Brotherhood had no way of tracking us, and somehow found some way to assure they were placed somewhere we would find them (Robin never found his, since he was at the time in the Brotherhood's main base). It had been taking a risk, leaving them out in the open, but we all managed to get them. I had tuned it on and it locked on Starfire's signal. She had told me the place we planned to regroup. I was thrilled to hear her voice again. I was off to the chosen meeting place as fast as I could go.

Garfield was the only on there yet when I arrived. He had pretty much broken my spine jumping on me, completely happy to see me, squealing in an almost terrifying manner and squeezing me so tightly I thought my spine might snap. He had clung to me, petting my hair a little, and for once I hadn't minded in the least, I was so genuinely happy to see him. And for once, I had actually hugged him back. And then Starfire had shown up, and there was more squealing and danger of broken spines. My back was sore from all the glomping by then, but I couldn't find it in me to mind too much. The sight of my friends' faces had been so wonderful to me that nothing could have made me want to express any discomfort. And then Cyborg had emerged, and given us the grim news of Robin's abduction. That had sucked the joy out us pretty fast. But, when Garfield had managed to track down the base and we had gotten Robin out and unfrozen Hot Spot and Wildebeest before at last engaging in that final battle that decided the fate of the war. I don't think we've fought with such intensity since. There was a kind of spirit, a kind of energy, that strengthened us all, something about just finally being together again, just fighting as the Teen Titans, united once more. We were unstoppable. And we tore down the Brotherhood from its foundation and left them with nothing, the Brain destroyed (and Mallah, at my own hands, since I had a personal grudge against him since the whole situation when he tried to harm Melvin, Timmy, and Teether), and nearly every other person involved with the Brotherhood had been sent to prison on various sentences. And the war was finally over.

And so now, things went on in a general pattern for some time, a pattern that I became accustomed to. I was constantly thinking of him, constantly trying not to think of him, no matter what thought went through my mind, it seemed to always have something to do with Garfield. Or would you rather I call him Beast Boy? Okay, Beast Boy, then. Whatever. But he was always on my mind. In my thoughts. In my dreams, no matter what the nature of the dream was. Being close to him in dreams was always nice, always warm and safe, but it was nothing like being close to him in real life. The more I dreamed of him, the more I longed to be close to him again. It was a feeling, when I was near to him, that I couldn't possibly begin to explain. It was something warm, tender, and complete. Something that I could never fully understand but enjoyed immensely. I couldn't help but love the memory of those few, precious moments in his arms. I always recalled those times throughout the years when he had graced me with random hugs that I had always secretly enjoyed, though I had always told him to quit it. And so these dreams made it even worse, even more unbearable, that I couldn't have him. And sometimes I could barely stand it. I needed him so much, and I didn't think he would never need me back. All of those things that made it so impossible to live so far away from him while we lived in the same building nearly drove me mad.

It was one night that I had awoken from one of many dreams of Beast Boy that I discovered that music was coming through the wall between my room and Robin's room. Robin frequently listens to music late at night, and none of the other Titans were bothered by it, seeing as on the left side of the Tower, Robin and I had our rooms, and then there was the bathroom, and then on the right side of the Tower, since the two groups of bedrooms sandwiched the Mainframe Room (though living room sounds much cozier), were the other three bedrooms. And so I was the only one constantly bothered by Robin's morbid obsession with staying up far too late and researching, and I continually had to go and tell him to turn off the pulsing heavy metal music that blasted from his chambers. This night, it was only soft, faint guitar music with no lyrics, which surprised me, and I figured he was either changing his taste in music or losing his mind, and suspected it was the latter. He had left his door open, and so I went in to make sure he still had all of his limbs attached , and was surprised to find that the music was coming not from a stereo, but from a guitar Robin was holding.

"What's with the Ben Moody act?" I asked. Robin didn't jump, and I wondered how he knew I was there.

"What?" he asked.

"The guitar," I explained, leaning against his doorframe, which indicated to him that I wasn't going to stay very long.

"Oh yeah. Well…I have to practice up…I just joined a band," Robin said with a bit of a shrug.

This surprised me…Robin has never seemed like the kind of person who would be musically inclined. "A band?" I asked him. He nodded.

"Yeah. Why is it so surprising?" he asked with another small shrug, acting like the Boy Wonder deciding to undertake a musical endeavor was a perfectly normal thing.

"I don't know. I guess I never would have really thought you would…you know…ever do anything in your spare time that didn't involve…Slade," I said truthfully, knowing he wasn't dense enough to be offended by something that made perfect sense. Some people would get fired up, but he wasn't one of them.

"I didn't either back then. But…times are different. I was just getting restless. Needed a change," he explained patiently. There was that word again. 'Change'. I winced a bit. Robin noticed. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I just hate the concept of change. You should know that by now." he definitely should have. I think all of us had come to dislike it in some small way since what had happened with the Brotherhood.

"Come on, there's something else that's bothering you, too. What is it?" he was attentive now. When you let Robin know something is wrong, he'll do anything in his power to make it better, and so if you're thinking about not telling him…well…you're thinking wrong. Despite how many things I had managed to withhold from him in the past, holding back was pointless now, because Robin knew I was his best friend and therefore he had license to prod until I told him what was bothering me. The whole Trigon thing had strengthened our friendship a lot…and it was almost creepy how he seemed to know how I thought.

I was always reluctant to confide my problems in anyone, but this was Robin. Pride didn't really matter when you were talking to him. He was just…Robin. I don't think there's really a way to explain it. So I sighed and caved. Sort of. "Well, Starfire was talking to me earlier. She…she has this huge crush on someone but she doesn't want him to ever find out because she knows he'll never have feelings fr her in return. I wasn't exactly sure what to say. What do you think I should tell her to do?" I was the expert at shielding situations. Ha. Sarcasm.

Robin sighed, gently strummed a few more chords, and then set the guitar aside. "Raven, if you have feelings for Beast Boy, and you really want a chance with him, just tell him how you feel. What's the worst that could happen?" he asked. Damn him and his knowledge of how my mind works!

"Any number of unpleasant things could result from my telling him," I argued. Robin gave another sigh, this one laden with exasperation.

"But none of them would be permanent. Sure, it would be pretty unpleasant if he rejected you, but you'd get over it. And at least you'd know. Just tell him."

I smirked. "Wow, and this whole 'tell him' nonsense is coming from the boy who's had a hopeless crush on a certain Tamaranian for almost two years now and hasn't even made an attempt to tell her?" I asked.

"Touche, Raven," Robin said, obviously unable to think of anything to say in his own defense. "I just….well, Starfire and I's situation is…different."

I smirked again. "How, exactly?"

"Well…maybe we're just not…_ready_ for any type of relationship right now. " he knew I wasn't buying it, and gave another sigh, though this one was filled only with exasperation at himself rather than at me. "Look, I guess all I can say is that you should learn from my mistakes and just _tell him_. Who cares if rejects you? It's better than being afraid of saying how you feel." he picked up his guitar again, comforting himself with a few floating notes before once again giving me his attention. "Believe me. _Anything_ is better than hiding how you feel."

I nodded. "True. But…I just…I don't want to tell him…he's never going to have any feelings for me, so what's the point, anyway?"

Robin gave a small moan of frustration and rubbed a hand over his mask where his eyes hid. "Raven-" he said.

"This discussion is over." I said, using my best final tone. "But really, thank you for listening to my problems. Goodnight, Robin." and I was gone before he could hound me about telling Beast Boy anything any further. I settled back into bed. Robin's guitar playing continued, and it didn't bother me now, it was just like if someone you live with snores. Usually it bothers you, but there are those select nights when it's more reassuring than annoying, because you know that at least someone is there. It makes you know you're at home and not drifting off somewhere into space.

Even though the sound of the guitar was comforting, I couldn't fall asleep. Something in me wouldn't allow my mind to rest, though my body was aching for rest. One downside of possessing my powers is that the body and mind are, at times, completely separate entities, having wants and needs totally independent of one another. And so there I lay, awake but craving sleep and wakefulness all at once. Finally, the sound began to lull me to sleep. But Robin's advice was reluctant to let me rest. The whole idea was ludicrous. Beast Boy would never, ever feel anything for me besides that awkward bond of friendship. I could never even make any kind of move to progress beyond anything other than that…could I?

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**I'll try to write more within the week, but if not, I'm sorry (; **


	5. Fanning the Flames

**Disclaimer: Nooo!**

**Sorry this chapter took so long! I had final exams last week and so I was busier than normal. I don't think the next chapter will take as long. Gah, curse school (; **

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It came apparent to me pretty soon that the fact was, it wasn't that I _couldn't _make a move. It was that I wouldn't. I had these raging, blistering feelings that actually bordered on a fiendish passion for him, I thought of him so much, I wanted him constantly and yearned secretly for just a brush of his arm…anything was enough….I just wanted to be close to him. And yet, along with all these feelings dragged that inevitable weight that I carried, dampening my chances of ever even coming close to something you could call a relationship with him. That weight was one thing and one thing only: my fear. For almost my entire life, fear has been with me constantly. Fear of the horrors I was to bring for Earth in the future, fear of losing people close to me…fear of a million things. And all that raging, churning fear was constantly boarded up inside my skull, affecting, for the most part, only me and my own actions. Fear was the one thing, no matter how mature I got, no matter how many years passed, I was never going to have a way around. And this fear of rejection from Beast Boy (or rather, just fear of the thought of telling him how I felt, though I tried to convince myself that I was only afraid of him rejecting me) held me back. Among other things. Was I even ready for a relationship? Did I even _want _a relationship? Or was it just the warm, intoxicating closeness of his body that I wanted? To be completely honest for a moment, I'm not exactly sure what it really was I wanted. All of these feelings were so confusing. All I knew was that I wanted him. What exactly it was that I wanted _from _him eluded me, but I knew that I wanted him…couldn't deny my desire's hot, almost palpable presence that seemed to hover in the air between us. It was a wonder that he didn't comment on it, because it was almost a physical thing, an entity, I could almost reach out a hand and wrap my fingers around the hot, squirming, pulsing little creature that was my desire, though I alone could see it.

But, though my feelings were strong and denying them was now pointless because I knew they were there, I continued to shield them, cloaking them in a mask of shadows like I often did my own face, hiding them safely locked away in some deep, internal vault, always carefully guarded against forced entry. Always hidden so expertly from the object of my affections. There were times when, if he had been a little more attuned to me, he would have been able to tell instantly and obviously that I had feelings for him. When our hands or arms brushed accidentally an almost pleasant, but still embarrassing, faint pink would spring to my cheeks, and instinctively my hood would raise to cover any of my expression's betrayal of my emotions. There were times when our eyes locked randomly when I could have sworn I saw him looking suspicious of my feelings. And I always turned away, turned away from him like I had for the past two years on a regular basis and pretended I could care less if he was near. If Robin was exasperated that I wasn't revealing anything to Garfield, he was keeping it carefully concealed. He knew it was none of his business, and so he stayed out of it. But there were times when an obvious event occurred between Garfield and I, and I would pretend nothing had happened as usual, when I could feel Robin's all-too-obvious impatient stare that said quite plainly _'What are you waiting for?' _I wasn't exactly sure what I was waiting for, but I satisfied myself in deciding that whatever it was, it hadn't come yet. That maybe I wasn't _meant_ to reveal my feelings to Garfield yet.

Meanwhile, as my ever-constant battle raged within, Robin held true to his desire to make a change. When Robin is restless with a routine, it is usually painfully obvious. Because he makes a conscious effort to do something to get himself back into the groove of enjoying his routine. But this time, switching training time to after lunch wasn't going to satisfy his craving to encounter something different. I had thought maybe this whole thing was just going to blow over and he would be back to normal in a few days, but he wasn't. This became clear four days after when he initially confided in me that he needed a change. He went out on a Saturday morning, mysteriously (but then again, when isn't any outing Robin goes on without us mysterious?) a returned with a car.

Now, when I say car, I definitely don't mean a red Ferrari. Because this car was far from it. It was a relatively old black car, though I know nothing about cars so I couldn't really judge either the age nor the model. The car was in fairly good condition, though, I knew that. The paint job appeared to be newer than the car, and was still a sleek, glossy ebony. Despite the fact that the car had no back seats, it wasn't all that bad. There were two bucket seats in the front, and then any that might have been behind had been ripped out long ago.

"Uh….nice, Robin," Garfield said, surveying the car after Robin brought it into the Tower's garage. "But….uh, you do realize it doesn't have backseats, right?"

Robin didn't look irritated at this, though I would have. He gave a chuckle under his breath. "No, I know. That's why I got it. We're going to use this car to ship what band equipment won't fit in the van we have," he explained.

Band equipment. I never thought I'd see the day when Robin of all people talked about band equipment. _Band equipment_. This whole thing was nonsensical.

I know I wasn't the only one who found the concept of Robin joining a band bizarre. I recalled a conversation with Cyborg earlier that week.

"Robbie joining a band…what's up with that?" he had asked, shaking his head a bit and putting the video game controller down on the sofa, showing that he was too baffled at the moment to continue clawing his way up the high score list at the moment. I had closed my book, marking my place with a few fingers, and shrugged my shoulders slightly.

"I'm sure he has a logical reason for doing it," I had said composedly, in a very it's-not-a-big-deal kind of a way, trying more to assure myself of this than Cyborg.

"Logical reason? The boy's gone and lost his mind! He's already got a team to manage, and as if that's not enough of a challenge for him." Cyborg had shaken his head in flabbergasted loss for words for just a moment. "He knows how hard it is to focus right now, after everything that happened…" he gave a vague shudder. "And this is definitely not going to help things."

"He's our friend, Cyborg. And he has his needs. Who are we to question them?" I had pointed out, hoping this would convince him to stop reminding me of the things that had happened during the battle against the Brotherhood…things I wasn't exactly ready to face even in memories. I was afraid he was going to bring them up directly, because I couldn't handle them right then. But thankfully, the subject dropped down, down into conversation hell, not to return from the dead for the moment.

"So you don't think there's anything weird about Robin joining a band?" Cyborg gave me a probing look. "Just admit it, you think it's nuts, too. Come on Rae, I know you well enough to know you think Robin's gone a little off the deep end with this one. He's always been a little out there but…how can he possibly think he can juggle the team and something else on top of it?"

Now, it might be sounding to you at this point that Cyborg was a bit neurotic and prone to overreacting. This actually isn't true. Cyborg is actually one of the more laid-back Titans. It takes quite a lot to set him off. He normally goes with everything as it happens and waits until he has a very good understanding of a situation to make an attempt to judge it. He is one to assess things before jumping straight in. And so he doesn't much overreact, since when he does react, it's when he knows exactly what's going on. But, as we were all still on-edge, since we were still settling back into our normal lives, the slightest thing could jar any one of us into a sudden pang of realization that things were still crazy with us, no matter how back to normal everything seemed. The thought of this eminent chaos sent Cyborg into panic occasionally. It was going to take longer than this for our lives to settle back into complete normality, for every last out-of-place fragment of our little reality to piece itself back into the puzzle of our everyday lives, and we all somewhere deep inside knew it. And though it wasn't a delicate process and nothing was really much capable of disrupting it, he was pretty jumpy about the whole thing, with that constant worry of 'oh god what if this screws up everything and life doesn't end up the way it used to be'. I think he yearned as much as I did for everything to feel exactly as it did the day before we left, and his terror at the thought of that not happening accounted for his occasionally strange and erratic behavior those days. We were all a little spastic, I suppose.

Robin stepped a bit away from the car as though he intended to leave the room, and then stopped. "I'm sorry, but I just can't seem to get it. What's so strange to you four about me joining a band?" he asked, standing patiently and awaiting our answers to this difficult question with utmost lack of complaint. "Any particular reason why you all seem so against it?"

The four of us were speechless for a moment, all of our minds grinding away in attempt to really pick out the true reasons for our mutual contempt for Robin's decision to flop everything around with his sudden choice of hobby. I could tell Starfire was uncomfortable with the whole idea by the way she was finding an inability to keep still. When she is upset or confused, she tends to move around a lot. Pacing is her usual action of choice, but right now she was merely crossing and uncrossing her arms and drumming her fingers restlessly against thin air as though her steady, constant motion would somehow bring all other movement in the world to a screeching halt if she tried hard enough. I knew Cyborg's thoughts on the situation already of course, and he too looked uncomfortable. Garfield had so far showed no distaste for the concept for Robin joining this band so far, but there was something in his eyes that mirrored the feelings I had on the whole matter. He, like me, rarely showed whatever happened to be running through his mind at the moment on the outside. Most of his feelings were hidden, like mine, though my mask, my means of hiding, was a sarcastic and emotionless guise, while his was a mask of what was sometimes only false cheerfulness.

We all just stood there, all waiting for someone else to finally voice the words that all of us were thinking. It seemed as though no one was ever going to speak, and I was almost about to swallow my pride and confess my fear that this whole situation would change things, but I didn't. I couldn't stand the thought of being the first unmasked.

It was Starfire who finally spoke. "Robin, I cannot stand it! As much as I wish to allow you to make whatever decisions you see fit, I do not wish to lose you!" she erupted finally, a geyser of raw emotion finally pouring forth, set free from her troubled mind. Robin looked extremely bewildered, but she failed to noticed and continued. "You will grow closer to these new….bandmates…and everything will change! You will longer be…_our_ Robin."

"Easy, Star, I'm not going to-"

"You will no longer have the time and energy to keep running the team effectively…and things will fall apart!" she continued, but Robin held up a hand, and she silenced herself.

"Look, I don't mean to be rude, but I think all of you are overreacting. A lot. It's not a big deal. Just something I'm going to do with my spare time. I'll still have the same amount of time for you guys that I always do." And I wondered if he was handling this so gently because he knew that secretly, for all of us, he was our one source of stability, that sense of something so perfectly strong and unbreakable that forced us to keep going on despite how uncomfortable all of these changes were. He was our one grounding force, the one person that for all of us stood for some warm, safe source of steadiness. "And I'm not going to become attached to anyone in this band. I'm only doing this as a favor for Wally. He called and asked me if I could take the place of their lead guitarist in a charity concert because he's away for the month."

"Wally as in Kid Flash?" Garfield asked, and Robin nodded.

We had been aided by Kid Flash in our final battle against the Brotherhood. He was a little high-strung at times but overall a pretty good asset to the new branch of Honorary Titans, and if not for him, we might not have gotten Wildebeest and Hot Spot out alive. Also, his vibrant sense of loyalty had been nothing if not encouraging, and he had played a large part in assembling a second attack on the Brotherhood's base while we were inside already fighting, which gave us a huge advantage. There were also buzzing rumors that he was now living with a former member of the Hive Five; Jinx.

"But seriously, you can all stop worrying. Nothing is going to fall apart. It's all fine. I'm telling you, this is not a big deal," Robin said in that wonderfully reassuring voice of his that could force you to believe in the impossible if he said it was true. "Trust me. Nothing is going to change."

If only he had known how very wrong he was.

**XXX**

After that first day that we all found out about it, the whole band notion pretty much disappeared for a while. It was mostly forgotten, piled underneath the other facets of our lives. Because, as Robin had told us, it truly was only something he would do in his spare time. He went to infrequent rehearsals to get familiar with the way things worked when the band played together, and did most of his practice at night in his room with his acoustic, and that soft music lulled me to comforted sleep on many occasions when nothing else could. It became a constant, comforting sound that I grew accustomed to within a few days at it became a part of my nightly routine. It was nice not to fall asleep to that stark blanket of smothering, all-consuming silence.

Meanwhile, our lives were getting back into an old, tighter pace. Robin, steadfast as he always was, pushed us headlong into intense training sessions on a regular basis, trying to get our heads 'back in the game'. We did normal sessions as usual, but there were also sessions where we would work on our teamwork that really pushed us to our limits at times. We would often do exercises to work on our trust in each other, and Robin frequently paired me with Garfield, which I knew he did on purpose. It wasn't as awkward as it could have been, though, since we had direct orders from Robin to work together and because this was strictly business. I remember many occasions when we trained together, how hard it was to stay focused on our exercises when I was thinking so much of him. It was hard to focus on anything beyond those startlingly green eyes when they were giving all their attention to me and me only. This was especially damaging when we were practicing hand-to-hand combat. Robin said that in case any of us were ever for some reason without our powers, we would still need to know how to defend ourselves, and so he pushed the hands-on training to the max. But sometimes I was so captivated by those stunning emerald orbs that I would barely notice he was moving to catch me in a headlock until it was too late.

I did enjoy these partner training sessions immensely, though. I was frequently close to Garfield, which was of course exactly what I had been wanting for so long. I would catch him in a hold, and I would be able to briefly take in his scent, unique and wild in quality, like summer air at twilight, not overpowered by that strong stink of cologne that some guys chose to wear. It took much willpower to keep from holding him longer than necessary. Touching was eminent in these sessions, and I relished in the opportunity to allow our hands, arms, even faces to brush as we trained on and on and his summer twilight smell was enhanced by the faint musky scent of sweat. I became far too bold and I knew it, but in the heat of the moment it was far too hard to care, and I would find myself catching him in a restraining hold and pulling his body rather unnecessarily against mine, to which he made no complaint. This was probably because he didn't see just how superfluous it was, but it was nice all the same that I never had so explain my actions. It was a pure rush just to practice hand-to-hand combat with Robin, Cyborg, or Starfire because of the thrill of a perfect block, of a well-thrown punch, of a perfect hold. But with Garfield of course it was a different kind of rush, one that had nothing to do with anything even remotely professional. It was a rush that came from pure animal pleasure at touching him, at just being close to him, brushing against him as we both slowly dampened ourselves in sweat throughout the course of the training session. I was desperately hooked on him, but I didn't care.

On the outside I was the same old Raven, but on the inside I wasn't myself at all. The 'normal' me was not a horrendously immature hormonal teenager overpowered by lust. But this strange new side of me was. It was as though some peculiar new animal side of me took over when I was around him, as though the old, sensible me was left somewhere far beneath it, buried in layers and layers of unfamiliar new emotions that clutched every inch of my body in tangles of physical and emotional yearning whenever the slightest contact between us took place. Trivial things didn't matter anymore, all that existed was the two of us. Just the one room (whichever one we happened to be in) where we were and nothing else, nothing but that little place we stood existed in the entire world. The slightest contact could send me somewhere far, far away from reality into a place in my mind where the only thing I could focus on was the sensation of the touch until it was over.

I thought I was losing my mind.

**XXX**

Without the constant threat of the Brotherhood hanging over our heads, our crime-fighting lives were becoming increasingly dull. Most of the villains we'd been fighting since we founded the team, as well as the new ones we had encountered with the Brotherhood, were either put behind bars or dead from the culmination of the war. Slade, who had had absolutely nothing to do with the Brotherhood fiasco, seemed to have disappeared completely. The last we'd seen of him was when he had aided us in the fight against Trigon, and he had seemingly vanished into thin air now. And so we really didn't have anyone to fight or any crime to solve. We pretty much trained constantly, staying in peak condition for absolutely nothing. We were getting so bored with everything that we did (which was…well….nothing) that we actually willingly took the training sessions that we had once dreaded and found ways to get out of. It got to a point where I wasn't even in the training sessions just to be close to Garfield, where I just did it for something to do. Meditation and reading weren't exactly providing five-star entertainment anymore, and the five of us had taken to watching movies constantly and sitting around talking about nothing. Conversation topics were scarce now that we'd been talking to each other as much as we could since we'd been separated and now we wanted to make the most of time we spent together.

It was nice and irritating all at the same time how we spent so much time together. I had been surprised that it was Robin who initiated the first evening of just sitting in the living room with pizza and a mix CD comprised of different types of music, at least one song that each of us would like, and talking about life, the past, the future…whatever. Just being together, talking, all of us…just five friends. I'd never really had those close, special times with friends before, and so these were strange to me. But after some time of this, no matter how nice it was, I think we all got pretty tired of it. A person can only take so much togetherness before it gets old. And so, life was getting pretty boring. I think it had been about a week since we had even left the Tower, and I could have sworn Cyborg and Garfield's asses were starting to graft with the sofa fibers. I was reading a book (as always). It was one without a title that I knew, one that held far too many unpleasant memories. A large, white leather book that now held no voice, only pages of a story that I could barely concentrate on sometimes being so livid with the memories it brought up.

Sure, his betrayal had hurt at the time, but it had been time, and I was past it. Now it was nothing but pure, unbridled rage when I thought of him. Rage is never a good thing for me to willingly expose my mind to, but despite this there are times when I have to read the book…I must look back and reflect on the past and how it impacted me. If I don't, I'll end up like Terra.

Oh God, Terra. Now that's a subject I don't really care to get into. I have pretty much been successful in not mentioning her so far, but before I progress in my tale, I suppose I'll go back to Terra. Of course, she was our friend for some time, then betrayed us, broke Garfield's heart, and ended up going 'savior' and rescuing Jump City from certain destruction. Despite how I had loathed her for some time, after she saved us and died in the process, I had given up my grudge, drained all the poison out of me that was hatred, and forgiven her. I had even tried to return her to life. And things were fine, I no longer had any negative feelings toward her memory. But then, she'd had to go and return, which had pretty much ruined my neutral opinion of her. It wasn't her return that made me start disliking her again…it was her actions. Garfield saw her when we were fighting a nameless villain the very day of our return to Jump City (we call him 'Chameleon'…we never did discover what the public call him). He had talked to her, and she had pretended she didn't even know who he was,…told him that he had the wrong girl, even refused to respond to the name 'Terra'. She was 'just a normal high school teenager', and completely ignored and denied her past. When she finally did admit that the past had happened, she had firmly told Garfield that she didn't belong in our world. Subtly and passive-aggressively rejected him. And so he had walked away from her that day and never looked back, and now he didn't talk about it. And so I don't talk about it. But I do have a grudge against her for hurting him that way, denying the past that way, denying the very essence of _who she was _and_ still is _that way. And I never want to be like that. I frequently look at the past and tell myself 'it's real, it all happened', just to be sure I never become Terra.

And because of that, even though it bothered me, I still look back on Malchior every once in a while. On that particular day, it was more irritating to think of him than anything. The summer heat was wearing us all thin, and the tension of being so blatantly bored was wearing. And then we all heard it…angel voices singing in sweet tones, singing promises of heaven. Namely, we heard the squawking of the alarm.

I fairly threw my book down and the video game controllers flew form Cy and Gar's hands, and Starfire dropped the spoon she had been stirring Pudding of Boredom with, and we were suddenly at attention, staring raptly at Robin, who was now hovering near the door, and then he said those beautiful words that we hadn't heard in far too long.

"Titans, go!"

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**More soon! **


	6. Lumorte'

**Disclaimer: Moo!**

**Yay, 'nother chapter! (: Finally some action. Battle scenes, woop!**

**Also, I apologize for the spoilers that showed up in this story in the past. I didn't really think about it, and I'm really sorry for anything that might have caused! Anyone who was inconvenienced by the spoilers, please let me know and I will draw a fanart of your request as an apology gift. **

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We arrived at the scene of the crime promptly. The Teen Titans never were ones to keep the villains waiting. I think it was the first time any of us had really been excited about a battle since we were just starting out as a team. I remember how eager we were to prove ourselves in those earlier days, how anxious we were to show Robin that his decision to add each of us to his team was a good one. I had been so worried that they were all going to find about my secret, about how I had these terrible things that my powers were capable of and that I was destined to bring an end to this world, that it had been nearly impossible to open up to them for a long time. Proving myself was an entirely different matter all together, but I'm not going to go into that right now.

Anticipation for battle was palpable in the air as the five of us dropped from the sky and landed in formation. The robbery currently in progress was being initiated by the Hive Five (minus Jinx, as she had recently joined the Honorary Titans). Apparently they had somehow managed to escape being frozen by the innumerable Titans who had been taking every villain in the Brotherhood's base down. Mammoth, Seemore, Kid Wicked, Billy Numerous, and of course, Gizmo, were in the process of ransacking the department store. We landed near Billy Numerous, who was shaken by the sudden appearance of five superheroes dropping from a skylight, and jumped, a CD he had been in the process of stealing flying from his hand. Robin lifted a hand and caught it easily in one fluid motion.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's wrong to pirate your music?" he asked before the five of us simultaneously flew into attack mode as though our minds were joined as one. Numerous wasn't expecting Robin's attack, and Robin caught him in a headlock easily, though Billy began to multiply and his clones attacked Robin from behind.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" I focused my attention of Kid Wicked, using a jet of black psychic energy to lift him into the air from the cash register he had been emptying of its contents, spinning him around to face me and giving him a blank stare out from under the shadowy mask of my hood. He said nothing, only countered my attack with a blast of his own strange energy that nearly knocked me backward. I recovered and intensified the strength of the power I sent at him, using it to slam him against the wall while lifted the metal railing from between two checkout counters and bent it around him so he couldn't move.

Another burst of the irritating energy of his flew at me and I ducked my head, feeling it ruffle my hair as it just missed me. I kept him floating there as I lifted a wet floor sign that lay nearby and brought it down on his head just hard enough to knock him unconscious.

This taken care of, I turned my attention to my friends to make sure they were doing alright. Cyborg hadn't even had to use his sonic cannon to subdue Gizmo, he had merely picked him up in one fist. The boy was still struggling in Cyborg's grasp as he wrestled with Mammoth. Gizmo's current gadget had been smashed in Cy's fist, leaving Gizmo no way to escape, since there was no way he was going to do it on sheer body strength.

"Come on, let me go you snot wad!" Gizmo squealed, squirming in Cy's iron grip. Cy chuckled and hit Mammoth with a blast from his cannon, which knocked him against the wall. Pretty much the only thing that could subjugate Mammoth was knocking him unconscious, since his incredible strength could overpower pretty much any restraints put on him. Cyborg looked through the cloud of dust, scanning for signs that Mammoth was awake. I think the fact that Mammoth leaped out and tackled him was a pretty good sign, but that's just me.

Mammoth had Cyborg on the ground, now, and had his huge fists clamped around the sonic cannon, ripping the mechanism from Cyborg's arm and smashing it like an aluminum can between his hands. Gizmo, still in Cy's other hand, was now yelling up a storm at Mammoth.

"What are you doing, trying to kill me? Are you outta your stinkin' mind?" he squealed, but Mammoth ignored him.

All of this happened over the course of about three seconds, and so now I reacted, lifting Mammoth off of Cyborg and sending him sailing--_hard_--into the wall. He slid to the floor, knocked unconscious. Cyborg climbed to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. "Thanks, Rae," he said. I acknowledged this with a nod and turned my attention to the other three. Robin was just finishing with Seemore, I could tell the teen was starting to weaken under blows from Robin's bo-staff. Seemore suddenly flipped a lens over his one huge eye and hit Robin with some kind of strange light, which knocked him clear off of his feet, and Starfire was over in a fraction of a second, pulling him out of the way before he could get hit with anything else. Robin smiled at her to show his thanks, and the two were instantly back in battle.

Robin pulled a disk out of his utility belt and threw it straight for Seemore's face. When it hit, it exploded into a mess of thick, sticky black goop, covering the eye impossibly. Seemore was officially down for the count, blind as a bat and now totally worthless in this battle.

Meanwhile, Garfield was beating off multiple Billy Numerouses, and they were coming at him left and right. When he knocked one off, another three would be on him. The four of us flew straight in to help him. Cyborg, unable to use his cannon, simply grabbed Billy after Billy and threw them. Whenever he knocked one out, Billy drew it back into himself, knowing well that unconscious clones were useless in battle. Knocking people unconscious was getting very old very fast, but today it seemed the only way to get things done.

"Raven, find some way to wrap his body so he can't multiply!" Robin shouted, taking a swing at one of the Billys as he came at him. I looked around quickly in search of something that would do the trick. Nothing came to sight immediately and I started to grow impatient until my eyes fell upon a roll of packing tape lying on one of the nearby checkout counters. I willed my powers forward and tendrils of black energy burst from my fingertips, catching the roll of tape and lifting it into the air, doing what Robin said even though I knew it was futile.

"You do realize the clones can multiply too," I pointed out, since this seemed to have slipped Robin's mind. He swore and shook his head, frustration pouring into his expression.

"Alright. I guess we'll have to get them all down. Titans, swarm them!" he called out, leaping forward and flinging half a dozen disk at once toward the crowd of red spandex-clad clones as Cyborg began knocking them down with his bare hands, having lost his cannon. Garfield had transformed into a gorilla and was knocking them out left and right, and Starfire was blasting starbolts one after another. I concentrated on blowing as many backward with a single blast as possible. We continued on tirelessly for the better part of twenty minutes, until finally the very last Billy hit the ground unconscious and we were able to breathe again.

"Well, I guess that's it," Garfield said, transforming back into his human form and wiping sweat from his brow. Gizmo, who was still clutched in Cyborg's fist, began to chuckle. All of us looked at him as though he had just sprouted several extra heads.

"Okay, we just totally kicked your butts, you're getting the law brought down on you again, and your daily crime spree is officially cut short. What part of that exactly do you find so funny?" Cyborg asked, raising his eyebrow. Gizmo gave a rather devilish smile, which was slightly frightening on his face.

"We're not through with you yet," he said. "Jet, now!"

I wasn't exactly sure what the hell he was talking about, and then suddenly something whizzed by my ear, and I smelled singed hair, since whatever it was had missed me very narrowly. I whirled around in midair, levitating about three feet from the ground, just in time to see something coming flying at me. I swooped upward and the thing that had flown at me pulled out of its dive and levitated about ten feet away. It was a teenage girl, chin-length ebony hair framing a slightly pale and very malicious face, rosebud mouth drawn into a malevolent smirk, eerie, orange eyes glowing slightly.

"Who are you?" Robin snapped, bo-staff still at the ready. But Jet made no move to reply. She expertly lifted one hand, that terrible grin still on her face, seeming like it was glued there, like a paper mouth pasted onto a paper face.

"Lumorte¢!" a ball of something glowing and bright shot from her palm and headed straight for Cyborg, hitting him square in the chest. He dropped Gizmo, who hit the floor with a thud on his head, and stared down in horror at the melted metal where the strange energy had hit. "You're looking at the newest addition to the Hive Five," she said, lifting both hands over her head and shooting a larger ball of the glowing energy from her hands. None of us were exactly prepared for this, as everything was moving so fast, and the ball hit Garfield, who was standing directly in her path. It sent him rocketing backward, and he slammed against the wall with a dull, sickening thud. I could feel my eyes widen and I'm sure my knees would have given way if I were standing on the ground.

"Beast Boy!" I strange, shrill voice that rarely came out of my mouth burst forth and I flew across the room, landing at his side and feverishly struggling to see if he was alright. There was a small trickle of blood pooling around his temple and his check was badly burnt from the energy, and he was unconscious. I cursed under my breath, trying not to panic. '_Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Please let him be alright!' _my mind screamed, unable to think of anything in the world but his condition.

All eyes were focused on Beast Boy, and Jet used this to her advantage. Reeling back a hand, she prepared to strike Robin in the side of the head with another burst of power.

A chunk of the ceiling came down on Jet's head, a chunk large enough to knocked her to the ground, though she struggled quickly to her feet, swaying clumsily and looking wildly around to see if it had fallen on its own or if there was another culprit.

"Oops, did I do that? Clumsy me," came a voice from the doorway as a pink-haired teenager stepped in, followed by a blur of red and yellow that soon revealed itself to be a boy.

"Figured you guys could use some help," he said with a wink.

If Gizmo had been conscious, he probably would have said something derogatory to Jinx. She had been a member of the Hive Five since they had started…she had probably been one of the founders. But Wally had been able to convince her that she could do better. And so she had. She had become a Titan. But since Gizmo was currently down for the count with a bump on his head, the room was silent for a spilt second before Jet gave a growl of malice and sent more energy toward the two most recently appeared teens. Wally rocketed off to the right as Jinx too expertly flipped out of the way in a strange display of acrobatics.

"You're going to have to do better than that," Jinx told Jet with a smirk, sending a shelf of CD's crashing down on her. The room fell silent as everyone craned to check if she had been defeated. The answer manifested itself when the shelf shifted and Jet squeezed herself out from under it. Her eyes glowed even brighter orange now as she turned them in Jinx's direction.

"You're going to pay for that, bitch," she hissed at Jinx, who feigned fear, placing a hand on her forehead and pretending to swoon.

"Please," she said with a roll of her eyes. Robin hit Jet with a good, solid strike with his bo-staff and Starfire hit her with several starbolts, and Cyborg came jogging over to where I knelt over Garfield.

"Is he alright?" he asked. He looked slightly panicked and I didn't blame him. The thought of one of them getting hurt, getting somehow killed and lost forever, haunted me constantly, too. It had never been such a big deal when someone was wounded in battle before, but now to me it felt like the end of the world (and believe me, I know what the end of the world feels like). A warm, protective feeling had settled over me. If anyone had tried to harm Garfield any further right then, I doubt they would have lived to tell the tale.

"He should be fine. He has a cut and some burns, but he shouldn't have any lasting damage when I'm done," I replied, hoping with all my being that this was true myself. I lifted my hands over Garfield's chest and proceeding to heal the burn. As I concentrated on my task, a warmth started somewhere in my center and traveled slowly up my shoulders, down my arms, and into my hands. Instantly, they began to glow white. The soothing white energies traveled down to Gar's burned and shiny flesh, quickly turning it back to its normal quality, the burn disappearing as instantly as it had appeared. With the burn healed, I took care of the cut on his temple and then instinctively rubbed a hand over his hair, trying not to look too much at his exposed chest. My hands had been so close to his bare skin, and I was tingling all over with that yearning feeling once more, physical and emotional all at once, a hunger that I buried as best I could and turned my attention back to the scene of the battle, unwilling to leave Garfield.

Robin, Starfire, Jinx, and Wally were giving Jet a run for her money. Four against one was definitely not an advantage in her favor. She was fighting back as best she could, but obviously the strain was proving too much for her. A good starbolt hit to the head finally and she was down, collapsing onto the floor. High-fives were exchanged.

"Who _is_ this chick, anyway?" Wally asked. No one seemed to have an answer.

I scooped Garfield up in my arms, carefully, cradling him against me much more than I needed to, and walked over to where the others were gathered. "He's still unconscious," I said, drawing their attention. "We need to take him home."

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**More soon, as always. :D**


	7. Mirror

**Disclaimer: NO!**

**Hope ya like this new chapter. This one is for James. (: **

**Just a brief note: I may be a little late posting next week's chapter. I'm working on a lot right now: A BBxT picture for Angie, art trades with Sparky (her DA name is SuzuSuzuka) and DarkRaven44 on DA, and I started writing a sci-fi novel, and so this is going to be a crazy week. **

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Back at the Tower, we carried Garfield into the Med. Bay, even though all signs of his physical injuries were gone. He was still unconscious, and so there was still an excuse for me to worry about him, though he appeared perfectly fine.

We got him onto the Med. Bay's cot and stepped back.

"What are we going to do about this?" I asked. "What if he's going to die?" I didn't mean to say it, but in a flurry of my internal paranoia it came flying out of my mouth without any chance of stopping it.

Robin shook his head at me, his expression a mixture between subtle amusement and a kind of attempt to comfort me. "He's going to be fine, Rae. You're just worried about him, that's all. I seriously doubt there's any harm done to him besides a bump on the head," he reassured me. I nodded, feeling extremely stupid for my little moment of insanity. I hoped the others weren't going to comment on it, and was relieved when they all let the subject drop.

"Man, who was that girl?" Cyborg asked, running several fingers over the large melted patch in the metal of his chest. "Yeesh. Whoever she is, she sure packs a wallop. You have no idea what a pain in the ass it's going to be to fix this."

"If you ask me, she seems a little off her rocker," came Kid Flash's voice from behind us, revealing that he had randomly followed us back to the Tower. He had no trouble feeling at home here, since he, Jinx and several of the other honorary Titans had lived with us for a while a few days after we had returned from fighting the Brotherhood. They had all showed up out of nowhere shortly after the repairs to the city had been finished and since they were Titans after all, we had no choice but to let them stay. It had been extremely cramped, that much was for sure. I had never really gotten accustomed to having so many people in the Tower.

"I agree," Starfire said with a nod. "She is…crazy?"

Robin reacted silently by shaking his head before speaking his mind. "I don't think she's insane," he reasoned. "I think she's just…you know, got your typical villain mindset." he crossed his arms, a habit of his whenever he stood still for more than thirty seconds. "She knows what she's doing, I'll give her that."

"Look, I don't know what her mental state is. I can't say I care. But whatever is wrong with her, it's not going to excuse her actions." I swore violently under my breath, surprising even myself. "That bitch," I muttered aloud. I couldn't remember myself ever getting bent out of shape so badly over one of my teammates getting a minor injury before. It almost scared me that I reacted so strongly over Garfield's unconsciousness. The whole ordeal had not been bad at all by crime-fighting standards, and yet it made me want to rip every one of Jet's limbs from her body.

"Are you okay?" Cyborg asked me, placing a mechanical hand on my shoulder. I nodded, patting his arm unconsciously, one of those little sister actions I always seem to do. I am, by non-literal standards, his little sister, whether I like it or not.

"I'm fine, Cyborg. I just…" I allowed myself to trail off, knowing that Cyborg, unlike Robin, would accept the fact that I really didn't want to talk about it.

I suppose I should take a moment to explain the family-like dynamic of the Titans. We've lived together for a long time, and we're the closest thing to family to each other that any of us has. The other Titans have sort of taken on roles for me. Robin is the fatherly type when it comes to me, trying to get everything out of me and wanting to know about my problems. He does respect my privacy and personal space to some degree, but when he really needs to know something that's going on, he tends to get carried away. Cyborg is more like an older sibling, never forcing me to talk about anything, usually there to listen and usually doesn't blow things out of proportion without giving me a chance to explain. Starfire is somewhat like a sister to me, the sort of person you can tell things without getting embarrassed, very easy to talk to, and always very willing to help with my problems. And Garfield…well, let's just say for the first few years he was mostly like the little brother I never wanted.

I suppose in any situation a team becomes like a family. For Robin, Bruce became like a father, for Garfield, it was the Doom Patrol that made up a family… family doesn't mean you have to have any blood relation to the people. It means you have to have a connection of the heart. DNA similarities don't really matter. I'd never really experienced any type of family life before I met the Titans. Being trained by Azar in Azrarath, never really being around my mother, Arella, until a few weeks before I left for Earth, this whole thing had been relatively new and strange to me for the first couple of years. But now, with these people standing around me, I felt at home quite certainly and it really did help me calm down considerably. I took several deep breaths and returned to my normal state of calm.

"Maybe we should give BB some time alone to rest," Cyborg suggested delicately, casting a subtle glance in my direction to assure himself I was indeed stable. When he was sure I was, he did not retract his suggestion.

"Are you sure it is wise to leave him? What if he is in the need of something?" Starfire asked, throwing a concerned glace toward the peaceful green teenager on the cot several feet from us.

"He'll be alright," Robin assured her gently with that soft smile he reserved solely for the Tamaranian. "Cyborg's right, he could probably use some quiet time alone to rest when he wakes up." Starfire nodded her agreement on the subject, and then, as one, we filed from the room, a strange little group. The walk down the hallway was a quiet one, Robin and Cyborg making some small talk about the GameStation 6 that was coming out next month, the rest of us listening intently and trying hard not to appear awkward. Ninety-nine percent of human lives are spent pretending not to be awkward when we don't really fit into our own skin.

When we got to that huge, familiar living room, it was somehow blissful to flop down on that sofa as we had so many times before. It was one thing that never changed, the way we always came home after something challenging had happened or something awful…or anything. The day we had discovered Robin was Slade's apprentice, the day I told them about the Prophecy, when we had returned from fighting the Brotherhood, when we had just finished preventing the end of the world, a million other things. We always came home and sat down on that sofa. Together.

We were in our usual order, me on one end, Robin next, then Star, then Cy, and Garfield was usually on whichever end he felt like on a particular day. Wally sat on my other side, and Jinx sat beside him, smoothing wrinkles that didn't exist out of the skirt of her dress. She stayed as close to him as she could without being obvious, as though he were her one source of sanity and familiarity at the moment. She was obviously uncomfortable and awkward just being here, after all the skirmishes she'd had with us in the past, all the times her team had tried to bring us down. And now she was on our side, and she recognized how sensitive of a situation this was.

I felt almost sorry for her, remembering how I'd felt the first time I was with the people who would eventually become the Titans. I had felt so inferior compared to these people, these strangers. I had been so indefinite in my role in the world…I was caught somewhere in the middle, never really showing what I really was. And then I met these people. They were so obviously heroes. They were sure and upfront about it. I wasn't really sure if I was destined for good or for evil, or just to shrivel up somewhere and cease to exist. They had made me feel, without realizing it or meaning to, even more pressure to figure out exactly where I stood. I think that's probably why I joined the team essentially. To find my place.

And so I understood. I knew how she must have been feeling. I saw the light rose-colored hair, the grayish skin, the pale pink, cat-pupiled eyes. And yet I saw myself there anyway. This wasn't some stranger I was looking at, some ex-foe that I should be reluctant to trust. This was me. She was what I had once been. She had Wally's help getting back on her feet and becoming something more and better than what she had been before. But she was still unsure of who she was…this situation had made her doubt who and what she was. Wally could manage most of it, but she was going to need our help, too. She was going to need our acceptance. If she didn't get it, she would never really be exactly comfortable being an honorary Titan, and she would continue to doubt what it was she was doing being on our side.

I shot her a sympathetic glance, catching her eye. I thought she smiled, but I couldn't be sure.

Robin and Wally were having some sort of conversation about the band, I only managed to catch a few seconds of it.

"You guys are finally going to meet the band," Wally was saying, and I saw that he was indicating the rest of us.

"What?" I asked, immediately feeling like an idiot after I asked for some reason.

"We're doing a practice here tomorrow," Robin explained to me patiently, not bringing up the fact that I should have probably heard the first time it was said.

"Oh," I said stupidly.

There was a feeling that was strange about the thought of having this new…._band_ here. Here in our Tower. This was our place, our castle. The place where the Teen Titans were the only ones that reigned, where we went through our own personal struggles, where we made discoveries, where we got to know each other, where we bonded and went from just a team to real friends. Everything had happened here, it seemed. It was where our legacy began, and it was where we had been…_at home_…for years. It seemed just wrong for someone else to invade it. Having Wally and Jinx here was different…they had been a part of our lives for a while, so they weren't intruders. We were on the same level as far as life went. I didn't like this strange, foreign idea of having someone else here. I wasn't sure if I was being reasonable or finicky.

So instead of thinking about it anymore I excused myself and decided to pay Garfield a visit, just to check up on him. I wasn't really worried about him… I just felt I would feel more secure if I confirmed his completely safe condition. When one of my friends is missing or wounded, I get a strange, desperate, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach that just refuses to dissipate. And for some reason, though I knew Garfield was fine, I was getting that feeling now.

As soon as I was about halfway down the hall leading away from the living room, I decided to break into a jog, and reached the Med. Bay in relatively good time. I found myself fairly flying through the door of the room, standing there with my cloak settling around me and then setting it into fierce motion all over again as I swept over to the cot.

Garfield was indeed safe and sound. I took his pulse just to be sure, and it was normal. I wasn't sure why I was getting so worked up over his being wounded. But I didn't feel like leaving him. I took a seat beside the cot and rested my elbow on the edge, watching his unconscious form.

He looked so innocent lying there. His face was peaceful, expressionless, like the fact of a sleeping child. His emerald hair was intensified in its normal messy state, stray clumps feathering across his forehead. I leaved forward, moving the hair from his face. Leaned like this, I had a rather good view of his exposed chest through the large hold burned in his uniform. Smooth, soft-looking emerald skin. I could feel a longing to touch him…to hold him and God knows what else…run through my mind.

'_Azarath, Metrion Zinthos."_

I cleared my head but still I couldn't bring myself to stop staring at him. He was so irresistible to the eyes, and I couldn't help following the subtle, graceful curve of his jaw, the sloping curves of his face, the outlines of his body hidden within the spandex uniform.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing, leaving forward more, placing one hand on his shoulder. It was warm. The warmth was intoxicating.

I leaned down, staring closely at the soft green skin of his face, the faint, delicate map of veins on his eyelids. I leaned closer, my nose brushing his cheek, bumping against his, his eyelashes brushing against mine…and then the sudden, almost unexpected meeting of our lips, just as I remembered it, warm, smooth, enthralling…

His lips moved against mine, jerked against mine. His body shot upright, our foreheads bumping hard, forcing me backward. And then that voice. His voice. That voice that told me I had officially fucked up.

"Raven, what the hell are you _doing_!"

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**XD Uh-oh, you really messed up, Raven. More soon. **


	8. Bullet with Butterfly Wings

**Disclaimer: YARG! **

**Yay! I finally got this chapter up (: Sorry it took so long. I'm pretty swamped with a huge load of English projects at the moment, so I haven't had much time to get online, and plus I don't really have internet on this computer (unless you count dial-up, but I don't. It takes forever!)**

**The majority of the second half of this chapter builds on Raven and Robin's friendship, but I'll just clear this up right away: This is NOT a RaexRob fanfic. This is (obviously) BBxRae. **

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The force of him sitting up and, of course, the force of my own shock , propelled me backward, off of the cot and onto the floor beside it. Garfield was now in a sitting position, staring at me down on the tile with an expression on his face that would normally be directed at someone who had suddenly begun speaking in tongues. I might as well have thrown myself onto the ground and acted out a scene from The Exorcist, I seriously doubt he could be any more freaked out than he was now.

"I…I…" was all I could manage to get out of my mouth. I could feel my cheeks flushing. All of the blood had drained out of my face when he had yelled, and now it was rushing into my cheeks.

He looked almost as strange as I imaged myself looking. Large, emerald eyes widened into giant bulging circles on his face, cheeks stained a deep red from his blushing, his hands trembling. I felt, in short, like a huge, perverted idiot. We sat and stared at each other for an awkward moment, my terror intensifying as the reality of what I had just done slowly began to sink in.

"Beast Boy…" I muttered. He was still gaping at me, and I could think of no words. The tension between us was thick in the air. I could almost see it hanging there, mocking us, making it almost impossible for us to speak. It felt like something large and furry had crawled into my throat and was now lodged there, refusing to budge.

"Raven…" he said, words trailing off as he stared down at me. I picked myself clumsily off of the tile and swayed to my feet, trying to will myself not to simply collapse back down. I was unable to look him in the eye for a moment, and when I finally could, he didn't look any less shaken. He opened his mouth and for a moment nothing came out. "Why did you just…kiss me?" he asked, eyes slightly glossed over.

At that moment, I had absolutely no answer. I stammered stupidly several times, opening and closing my mouth like a fish with a mental impairment before I finally decided to keep it closed. I shook my head instead.

"So you did that for no reason?" Garfield still looked baffled, as though not really sure what he should be thinking about this situation. I managed to hate myself quite thoroughly right then.

"No…well…I don't know…" I stammered, grabbing my hood and pulling it up over my face, turning away because it was easier to talk to him that way. I could sense him moving behind me, I heard the squeak of the cot as he got off of it and his feet hit the floor. "It's okay, Raven." I started to walk away from him as quickly as I could. I didn't want to deal with this. "If you had a reason…" I glared furiously. His hand closed on my shoulder to stop me and he took me by surprise as he spun me around, holding onto my upper arms gently so I was forced to look at him. "…then what was it?"

He was staring me down. This was the kind of thing Robin normally did. I had never seen Garfield act so domineering. His emerald eyes stared into mine, but though the gaze was forceful, there was nothing unkind about it. It was almost warm. I could feel my expression soften. His hand lifted from my arm for a moment to push back my hood and it fell back to hang worthlessly around my neck. That blush that had lifted danced across my cheeks once more. We were so close right now. His spinning me around had involuntarily brought us nearer than was normally necessary. If I moved forward just a few inches we would be kissing again. This thought sent the blush reeling even darker across my cheeks, spraying them a deeper pink, I knew, because of how warm they suddenly were. There was a silence then, a pause that was comfortable and awkward all at the same time. And then a slight noise behind us had Garfield letting go of my upper arms and I stumbled backwards, set off-balance by the sudden loss of support on my body.

I wasn't exactly sure what the noise had been until I heard the soft, mechanical whoosh of the automatic doors to the Med. Bay swing open, and decided the noise must have been footsteps. I became aware of an unwanted presence and knew that the others had unmistakably arrived.

"BB, you're awake!" Cyborg exclaimed happily, clapping Garfield on the back.

"Uh, yeah, Cy," he said with a still slightly nervous grin, looking up at the half-robot teenager who beamed down at him. Despite his moment of control just a moment ago, Garfield was still shaky and slightly mortified, his cheeks still aflame with the fierce blush. It was kind of nice for once to not be the only one who looked like the best thing for them at the moment would be to take a flying leap out of the nearest (preferably 12th story) window.

"Feeling okay?" Robin asked Garfield. He gave a quick nod and turned away slightly, probably trying to conceal how much he was still blushing. I felt suddenly guilty for what I had done. I wasn't exactly sure if it was wrong or not. It was sort of like I had mouth-raped him. Shit…that sounds much worse than what I really mean…oh God…I didn't…you know….I didn't….alright, I'm not even going to go there. The point is…I didn't have my mouth anywhere fiendishly inappropriate. I kissed him against his will, that's all.

I wondered for a moment if he hated me now. The thought of that scared me. I had treated him horribly in the past, and I had still managed to avoid making him despise the very sound of my name, and I really hoped that what I had just done hadn't ruined that.

I tried to tell myself that no matter what happened, I was never going to do that again. I tried to make myself believe it. It made him horribly uncomfortable, and I didn't want him to feel that way. And so, deep within myself at that moment, I promised that I would never again make any kind of move on Garfield. I promised it and sealed that promise tight within my mind where I would never forget it, never ignore it, never dishonor it. It was a promise. If there was one thing Raven Roth was capable of, it was making an honest vow that would never be forgotten.

That was another one of The Changes that took place that summer: I started breaking promises.

**XXX**

Part of me really didn't want to realize the fact that Robin had a new part of his life. It was just an uncomfortable thing for me to think about. He was my best friend, and suddenly there was this huge chunk of his life that none of us were part of. It felt strange, because for the past several years, except for his situations with Slade, Robin had pretty much included us in everything he did. The five of us had been pretty much what the whole world was to each other, our own little secret universe that no one else could ever understand. There was the thing about friendship that I hated. I threw my whole being into my friendships. Even when I had stayed withdrawn from the Titans in the beginning, I put every part of me into my relationships with my friends. Even though I never admitted it, I depended on them to just be there. Not do anything, not even to help. Just to be there. I made them my world, sacrificed everything, even the little insignificant things that I didn't even notice. But in every friendship, especially the ones where you love as wholly as I did the Titans, there is disappointment. There is the inevitable letdown, no matter how many years you spend up at the top of the world.

I had had my share of disappointments with them already, but this was different. I had never really felt shut out before. I was always an overly-sensitive person, tending to over-analyze every situation, and so this fact really got to me. Robin was trying to pull us all into this new little part of his world, include us, make us part of it. But it was different somehow…though he wanted us inside, this part of his life left us outside, no matter how ridiculous and melodramatic it seems. I always seemed to blow things out of proportion when it came to my friends, and I'm still not really sure why. Maybe because they were really the only thing I had in my life, besides the whole crime-fighting thing. But no matter what the reason, I was always horrendously over-protective of them. I wanted them close to me forever, but no one can ever stay forever. I didn't want to think of the new facet of Robin's life, the part that none of us could ever hope to understand. I could accept it, but I would never enjoy it.

And so it was no surprise that I hid under my hood as I helped Robin unload music equipment from the seatless back of his car. I silently grabbed amps, guitars, drums, mic stands, lifting them in veils of ebony energy and transferring them carefully through the door of Titans Tower, letting my mind guide them up to the living room.

"Thanks for the help, Raven. You're way better at this than I'll ever be," Robin said, grinning at me and lifting several electrical cords from the back. I didn't answer, just gave him a nod and my patented little fleeting ghost of a smile. Robin set the cords down in the back again for a moment, and turned to face me, cocking his head slightly. "Raven, is something wrong?" he asked, his gentle concern flooding his voice over and turning it into more of a security blanket.

I shook my head. "I'm fine," I told him unconvincingly, transferring the last bit of equipment, Robin's dropped electrical cords, from the back of the car to the living room.

Robin gave a soft sigh, a whisper of air over his lips. "If there's something wrong, you can tell me. You know that, right?" he asked gently. He sounded so fatherly, so soft and parental. He's always been the closest thing to a real father I have ever had, and right then this was very hard to resist. For a moment I wanted to fly into little kid mode and wrap my arms around him, and never let him go. But I didn't. Instead I nodded.

"I know. Thanks," I said with a small nod, turning away to head inside. Robin grabbed my forearm, and I took this as an indication that he wanted me to stop and did so. He was looking at me like I was his teenage daughter who he knew for a fact had been drinking but wasn't fessing up.

"Raven, I can tell something is wrong. What is it? If something is bothering you, you need to tell me." he looked me straight in the eye. "I can help."

Great. He thought my problem was one involving my own life. Just super. Trust me to make people just to stupid conclusions because I'm too pigheaded to ever just come right out and talk about it.

"Look, Robin, it's not…well… anything to do with me. You don't need to worry." he was still looking at me expectantly. I had a hunch he wasn't going to let me go until I told him what was going on. "I'm just…a little worried."

He raised one half of his mask, which meant that he had raised an eyebrow. Or maybe his eyelids were having spasms and trying to break loose from his face…which is personally what I think is happening to Shannon Doherty every time she appears on television. "Worried? About what?" he looked concerned and a little confused. He pushed my hood back so I couldn't hide from him in my shadows anymore.

"Well…I know this sounds stupid." I pulled my hood back up with the arm that he didn't have in a vice grip. "But…it's like Starfire said before. I sort of feel like I'm losing you," I said softly. He opened his mouth in surprise and started to say something, but I wasn't finished yet. "And not just because of this whole band thing. You've been so…distant, after what happened with the Brotherhood…" I felt compelled to pause. "…after what they….did to you." a visible shudder went through his body, and through mine, too, dark, fear-drenched memories drilling their way into my thoughts. I felt sick for a moment. "It's like you're so far away from me, and I can't touch you anymore."

Robin was looking off at something over my shoulder. I could see a strange edge of weakness that I had caught glimpses of many times in the past, that little helplessness that no one else ever seemed to make sense of. My powers went haywire picking up his rampant emotions, confusion mixed with fear mixed with internal pain, and then his feelings smoothed over to his normal calm, his flash of weakness was gone. "I had a grandfather when I was younger. He lost a leg in Vietnam, and he used to be so uncomfortable talking about the war. But I remember he said that his leg was just flesh. He hadn't really lost anything by losing it. But he said he lost something else, something he didn't even remember having, but it takes forever to get it back again…" he looked back at me, and there was nothing unnatural about his face or tone, but his words were eerie. "That's how I feel."

I wasn't exactly sure what to say, and so I stayed silent, waiting for him to speak again. The hand that gripped my arm trembled for a moment, and then steadied again.

"I feel like I lost something in that base. Some of the things they did…I still remember it and it almost scares me that I could survive it and…still be a person…not just a shell. But something was gone. I got it back, but it scares me thinking that it was ever gone…that I could ever lose something like that. I've done impossible things. Stupid things. Terrifying things. But I never lost anything before. And then I somehow came out of that base changed, after all that. It scared me, and so I sort of…I don't know." he paused and regarded me through his mask, though I could sense the eyes underneath getting their usual look in them, whatever that was. "I guess that's why it seemed that way. But don't worry, Raven. Anything that happened in the past, this band thing, anything that happens in the future…you're never going to lose me," he assured me, giving my arm a squeeze before he let go. "I promise."

I touched his arm, squeezing his flesh, my concern for him overriding all thoughts about my own problems. Some part of me had always known that what had happened to him in that base had marked him deeper than he ever showed, and this just proved that assumption. "Are you alright?" I asked him, giving his arm another squeeze, sort of wishing I could be parental and comforting right at that moment so I could comfort him the way he always comforted all of us. "Do you need to talk about it?"

Robin shook his head. "I'm over it, Rae. I promise. It just…it freaks me out sometimes thinking back on it. I'd rather not think about it. Besides, I need to concentrate on keeping you in line today, remember?" he joked, and I could see the familiar look to the curve of his smile.

I became aware of myself smiling, and knew that it was alright.

"We'd better get inside before we're late," he said, and I saw him quickly glance for a watch that he didn't have, an old habit I suppose is hard for people who used to be normal to break, no matter how many years they run around in green tights.

I nodded, giving him a pat on the shoulder. "And thanks, Robin."

He smiled his usual Robin-esque smile and nodded back. "Don't mention it." we started for the Tower. "Oh, and by the way, you might want to make sure he's asleep next time you decide to kiss him," Robin remarked, dodging my punch as we walked through the front door.

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**I'll post the next chapter as soon as possible. I'm doing about 4 English projects at once now as well as heavy-duty research, so it's kinda crazy right now. But I have a pretty good start in chapter nine, so it won't take TOO long. **


	9. Plastic Machine

**Disclaimer: Boob! **

**I should be getting my internet back soon, so I'll no longer have to wait for a window of time where I can use dial-up to post updates. **

**For a preview of what Robin's band (Plastic Machine) sounds like, check my bio for the link! **

**This chapter is for James, my super-awesome friend who deserves a million glomps of doom for how much he's helped my writing! (:**

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For a little while there, I seriously did consider for a short time the prospect of a relationship with Robin. I know you're thinking it: 'Come on, Raven, you had a thing for Robin, didn't you? Godammit, you giant whore!' and so I suppose I'd better just admit it and say that way back in the beginning I did have a bit of a crush on him…but it never escalated into anything more than a confusing little kiss or two behind the others' backs before we both came to the conclusion…well, to put it plainly, we pretty much stopped and asked 'What the fuck are we doing here?' and that was end of that. We've always been close, but never close in_ that_ way. Robin has (and always will) wanted Starfire since the day we all met. We had our little moments, but after we sat down and decided that we were just never going to be anything, Robin and I have grown quite comfortable in our friendship. And so that's the end of that discussion. I wanted him in the beginning, but it was just something that I wanted because I was young and stupid and I didn't really know _what _I wanted in the first place. After all, don't we always want what we can't have? I suppose I never really knew what I did want until around the time I had my dream about Garfield, but that's beside the point. The point here is, my romantic feelings for Robin are zip. Deal with it.

When we got into the living room, I'm not exactly sure what it was that I expected, but Robin's band certainly wasn't whatever it was (well…it wasn't _Robin's_ band, since he was only filling in for their guitarist, but whatever). They were a strange bunch. Of course, there was Wally, still in his yellow and red spandex uniform that freaked the hell out of people on the street. And then there was, to most of our surprise, Argent, in her usual elegant gothic style of dress. I didn't know the others. There was a medium-height teenage boy who had a fascination with wiggling his eyebrows, sporting a shock of electric pink hair tinged purple at the tips, looking very much the part of 'rock star'. And then there was a relatively normal-looking girl with reddish brown hair and curved bangs who seemed to have nearly as much trouble not smiling as Starfire did. None of them seemed very threatening, which made me a little less harsh in judging them. But I still couldn't help but be a bit skeptical.

"Alright, let's get started!" the pink-haired boy said, looking like he wanted to bounce off of the walls right about then (and I wouldn't have put it past him). "Now that Robin's actually here."

So they called him by his superhero name as well. I felt a little less put out now, since the four of us knew Robin's real name, which he had surrendered to us along with the secrets his briefcase contained. He never put that kind of trust in anybody else. Nobody had ever seen inside that case. Ding Dong Daddy had stolen it assuming it contained some kind of secret weapon or something along those lines. He would have been quite surprised if he had seen what the case actually held. Surprised and disappointed. But for us…it was something we had always wanted, a glimpse at who Robin really was. And it was nice for once, not to be left in the dark about the boy behind the mask. I think it made us all feel a little better about things.

I think Robin rolled his eyes then, but it's pretty much impossible to tell. He always hid behind that infernal mask. "You're the one who never even shows for practice," he said, shaking his head. "At least I come."

You could tell just by that remark that Pink Hair was a bit of a slacker (I've heard the artistic types always are, but who am I to judge?). Robin has a knack with somehow getting people to almost immediately do something to reveal a lot about their personality right away, a talent which was pretty obvious here. I wasn't exactly sure if I liked him yet or not. He had that airy, carefree manner about him that reminded me of Wally, but a bit of a hyper, jumpy edge that reminded me of Garfield…the bad part of Garfield, anyway.

The Girl, on the other hand, wasn't quite so obvious. She was normal in appearance, and the only one in the room dressed in a way that could be considered relatively normal (Pink Hair was wearing a kilt over his old black jeans). She had a rather adventurous smile on her face and she had green eyes that reminded me a bit of Garfield's, though his were a bright, shocking green color and hers were a bit less intense. These closed-book kind of people always made me nervous. I was never quite sure what to expect of them. I was hit was a slight pang when I realized that something about her reminded me slightly of Terra. I wasn't sure what it was. Maybe the fact that she was just so…well….normal.

"Guys, you know Wally and Argent. And these are Eric and Josie," Robin said, and Pink Hair and The Girl waved (well…Josie waved, and Eric gave us a spastic kind of thumbs-up maneuver). "And these are my friends, Cyborg, Raven, Beast Boy, and Starfire," Robin said, introducing all of us in turn. He had his electric guitar in hand, rather than the acoustic one I was used to, and looked very rock star, despite his mask and tights. I managed what was probably a spooky-looking nod at the newly introduced pair, since I had my hood up again. I made an attempt to be friendly, but I guess my disarming smile wasn't as disarming as I thought it would be, given the fact that I could barely feel the corners of my mouth point upward.

"What's new, Raven?" Argent asked me in her nimble British accent, still in the process of setting up her keyboard on its stand. I shrugged, watching her slide the legs of the stand smoothly into place and situate the keyboard on top.

"Nothing much," I answered, debating on whether I should continue with the small talk. "Heard anything new about the Brotherhood of Evil?"

Argent shook her head, sending locks of spiked black and red hair flipping around. "They're still frozen where they belong," she assured me, plugging a cord that ran out of the back of the keyboard into the wall outlet. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm not worried," I told her. "I just-" I shrugged. "I just wonder sometimes."

Argent nodded. "I don't think there's any way they're going to get out of this one."

"Alright, let's get moving!" Eric shouted as though we were in an extremely noisy room. "We didn't come here to stand around!" Wally grumbled a bit about not having his guitar tuned or something along those lines but strode over to the others, anyway, taking his place in front of the mic (so he was the vocalist, apparently).

I made a point to find a seat beside Jinx on the sofa and inquire about things while the band was doing some last-minute tuning. She seemed to have lost some of her awkwardness over the last twenty-four hours, which was a good sign. She also seemed a bit surprised that I was talking to her, which I don't blame her for. I don't exactly win any awards for world's most social person, and I certainly had never really talked to her when she had been a villain. But I understood what it was like to feel out of place and awkward, and so I was in a pretty good position to help. So I did the best I could.

Garfield was on my other side, much to my own secret pleasure. He elbowed me and gave a small grin. "How much do ya wanna bet Wally was late because he was boinking Jinx before practice?" he asked in a light whisper. The mere brush of his arm against me, and also the fact that he had mentioned sex to me, no matter in what context, sent an electric chill up my spine. I gave a small chuckle to humor him and he have me a large smile, which made me instinctively return it.

The band (which was apparently christened Plastic Machine) was actually pretty interesting. They had a way of having all their separate sounds flow together to make one constant, harmonious, almighty wall of sound. Every separate part of the music supported each other, each doing something individual to keep the song going, which reminded me a bit of the Titans. Wally's voice was also that confident, addictive kind of a voice, going soft or loud or harsh or sweet, depending on what was going on in the song. And I really did enjoy watching Robin (or anyone, for that matter, though Robin was especially good at it) playing the guitar, the way their hands danced over the strings and plucked life out of the depths of the instrument.

The current song was something strange, a warm-up kind of tune. It sounded as though about half of the lyrics were in Japanese, either that or Wally was just babbling to get his voice warmed up. After the song was over, Eric announced the temporary list of songs that would be played at the gig and the order they would be performed in, reminding the band that the list would certainly change, and then they came to the decision to run through the entire set. And so they began. They started at the beginning , and I had to admit it was extremely captivating. They didn't slam straight into it with an air of arrogance as some bands did. They began with a quiet, detached kind of entrance to the first song, and then they slammed through the whole thing with confidence and just the right amount of emotion and desperation. I've never really been much of a music critic, but I still had to admit that they impressed me.

After running through the entire set, the practice was more or less over. Instruments were put back into cases, equipment was loaded back into cars and vans, and the whole room was choked with the suffocating feeling of 'packing up'. I swallowed a small bubble of panic that the concept filled me with and watched the scene, ready to jump up at a moment's notice if someone needed help. Anything to take my mind off things.

Josie, who had finished loading her equipment into whatever car she was storing it in, strolled over and took a seat on the sofa. A strange wary feeling came over me when I saw that she had found a seat on Garfield's other side. I immediately shook it off and felt ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason to react that way. I didn't care when Starfire sat beside him, after all, and she was a girl, too. My just something about the way her red-brown hair swept gracefully around her shoulders and the way her smile lit up her face made me stay on-guard, no matter how natural I tried to act.

"Hi," she said cheerfully to Garfield, giving him a smile. "You're Beast Boy, right?"

"Yeah," Garfield said with a nod and a grin. "So, how do ya know Wally and them? You have any superpowers or anything like that?"

Josie laughed. "Naw, I'm just one of those boring normal chicks," she said with a wink. " I'm not one of you glamorous superhumans. Eric is my cousin's best friend, so I know him that way, and I met Wally and Argent through him." her green eyes glittered good-naturedly, and try as I might I couldn't find anything threatening in her that might have spelled out our doom.

"Oh," Garfield said with a nod, looking way more interested than he needed to. God, why was he smiling like that? "So, you from Jump City?"

Josie shook her head. "Nope, moved here last summer. Born and cultivated in Gotham."

Garfield giggled a little more than he needed to. "Cool. A Gotham chick. Do you know Robin from before? I think he was cultivated there too."

Josie laughed again. Something about the way she laughed tied a deep, tense knot somewhere in the depths of me. It was a familiar kind of laugh. I already knew who she reminded me of. I had known from the moment I had seen her who she reminded me of. And now I saw that he saw it too. I had been a fool to think that he wouldn't see it. I had been lying to myself, hoping that he would be too blind after all this time to recognize it. But, of course he did.

Garfield was laughing too, and I saw something in his eyes that I had seen far too many times before. I had seen it when he was around a certain blonde way back in the old times. And there that look was again, plain as day. His eyes didn't lie. His eyes always spoke to me without meaning to, without him even realizing it. And they were speaking to me now. But I had already known the truth in what they were telling me before that look had even come over him yet.

They were telling me that I was officially fucked.

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**More soon dearies (; **


	10. War of the Roses

**Disclaimer: Noooo! I don't own TT.**

**Yay. A new chapter. Hope you all like this! **

**And yes, I know I probably got everything about Rae's past wrong, but that's ok. This story is a free-form kind of thing, not a hard-facts kind of thing. (: **

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If there is one thing that I completely, honestly can't stand, it is jealousy. Jealously makes people do stupid, terrible things. Jealousy is the undoing of countless relationships, the brick that crushes friendships, the fire that consumed lives and leaves nothing but choking, worthless ashes. And I've never been any exception. Guilt makes me to ridiculous things as well, makes me just as stupid as anyone else. I've had my own fair share of instances where I judgment has been clouded by jealousy and I've done some pretty unreasonable things. I remember being jealous of Garfield and Terra way back in the day, though I wasn't really sure why. I hadn't had any feelings for Garfield then, but I was jealous anyway. It might have been because of the fact that Garfield had always had a crush on me, was always flirting with me, always trying to get me to laugh, and then suddenly all of his attentions withdrew from me. Suddenly he did all of it for Terra. I guess that was when I realized that some small part of me really did enjoy his attention. And so my point is, I'm no stranger to jealousy.

I certainly had plenty to be jealous of. Josie came over regularly for practice with the band, and she and Garfield would talk and laugh and I would pretty much generally sit there feeling like shit and beating myself mentally for not making a move on Gar while I had the chance. They never went on any dates or even saw each other outside of band practice, but I still could sense exactly what was happening here. I could feel the emotions blossoming. Oh God, why hadn't I told him how I felt when I'd had the chance?

I still did feel the same way. When he touched me or even looked at me my entire body would get a delicious wave of pleasure through it, and there were times when he left me so breathless I simply wanted to grab onto him and never let him go. I still thought of that rather embarrassing night in the bathroom, and I felt so strange thinking of how I wanted to see what I had seen again, how I wished I could. I still dreamed of him on a regular basis, and I became so irritated with needing to change my sheets so much that after a while sometimes I didn't even bother. This was no longer a standard crush. No, I'd had my share of crushes before, and it had escalated into something far beyond that. This was something more along the lines of pure animal desire, something raw and primal, caused by some strange side of me that wanted nothing more than to be with him in the very closest sense, to feel his heat on my own body, to feel what he would feel like inside me.

I had come past the point of feeling dirty from these thoughts now. Now I accepted them (though I would never reveal them), though I still tried to make them go away. There was just something wrong, just so, so wrong and unnatural about wanting to feel that shuddering, thundering heat inside of me when it came from Garfield. It was just unheard of. He was Beast Boy. I was Raven. It was just unwritten and unnecessary to be said that those things just couldn't happen between us. We could never share a romantic moment without flying into awkwardness afterward, we could never look into each other's eyes without pretending afterward that it was an accident, and we could certainly never fall together into raw and brutal passion as we did in my dreams…passion that was primitive and sometimes almost vicious in its intensity, burning and raging like an age-old flame. Never. This was simply for two reasons: one, Garfield had long ago given up on me, and two, my passion for him had never been returned. He had no passion for me, as far as I knew, and he was horrible at hiding emotions. He was always an open book…him trying to keep something hidden from us was like trying to eat soup with a fork. Somehow it always seemed to seep through.

I wondered sometimes if it was natural…if it was even healthy, to feel this way about someone. I wondered sometimes, did other people feel this way? I would lie awake in bed at night, long after the other Titans had all drifted off to sleep in their beds, even after the soft floating of music from Robin's guitar had ceased, and wonder if I had somehow developed some kind of new, never-before-experienced-in-the-history-of-hormones kind of emotion. Some kind of thing where the body and mind worked together to make you writhe with desire for a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, whatever) until you are just about at the point of collapse from so much clandestine passion. It was a little internal war over something I wasn't really sure of, but it always felt like a war going on inside me, with so many emotions clashing against each other. Emotions were such fragile, gentle things, and were definitely not meant slam against each other all day in their attempt to drive me into insanity. It was like a war waging between roses.

Those nights would pass me by one at a time, inching by as I lay in the darkness trying to quiet the stirring of my body and mind. It seemed that whenever I found a quiet moment to think that every part of me was churning and stirring, at constant unrest from desires left unfulfilled. And I was well aware of these desires. I had never wanted something along those lines before. I had never really felt this kind of animalistic longing before. This went beyond emotional longing, as my longings never had before. These longings could not be satisfied by smiles or kind words, no matter how many I accumulated. These longings could only be satisfied in ways where my body could finally release its perpetual tension.

And so, there I lay one night like any other. It was only about ten, and I had just barely gotten into bed. As usual, my musings began without any real consent on my part. But that was just how my brain worked. There were times when I really didn't have any say in what it did. My mind went into its usual series of painful churning thoughts, racing by. Thoughts about how I felt, how stupid and pointless it was. I had a mad, desperate passion for a boy who was falling in love with another girl. It was ridiculous and pointless and yet the feelings always seemed to refuse to disappear. I still got choked up when I thought of him, my body tingled with that strange electric excitement whenever our arms brushed in the hallways. I was hopeless.

It was becoming very clear now that my emotions were driving me insane. I could see it very clearly now. I was just not equipped for these kinds of feelings, and yet they were forcing themselves on me anyway. I have never been a romantic person. Never. Crushes I've had have never been pleasant, romantic things for me. For example, my feelings for Robin way back when were a nuisance, an extra weight to carry with me that seemed to get in the way whenever I tried to do something. That was all it was. I'd become a little better since then, and wasn't exactly unhappy with my feelings for Garfield. But it still felt strange. Little half-demon me, with these romantic feelings that I wasn't designed for, in my opinion. In many people's eyes, I was designed solely to survive until the age of sixteen, when I would serve as 'the gem'…the portal to bring my father to Earth and end the reign of the humans. In my own eyes, I wasn't exactly sure what it was I was designed for. But…it certainly wasn't for love.

**XXX**

When most people are at a state of unrest or are displeased with their own emotions, the only thing they can really do is grumble to themselves and hope that the discomfort with their current situation will soon become more bearable. Which is why I am, for once, extremely lucky to the freak I am. When there is something going on _inside of me_ that I have a problem with, I can go straight to the source. The place where all emotions, unpleasant or not, originate. The mind.

Now, I must make this perfectly clear. I have the ability to physically go into my own mind, and interact with the physical manifestations of my emotions and sides of my personality. But just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should. It doesn't even necessarily mean that you won't wish you couldn't do it. That mind of mine is not exactly my favorite place. I dread going there.

So you can understand why I sat on my bed that night, legs crossed, eyes turned toward the huge windows that covered one entire wall of my room (every now and then flickering over to where a large ornamental hand mirror sat on the table across the room), why I was dreading the mere thought of venturing into the world inside myself. Myself, Cyborg, and Garfield (it's a long story and probably not even one you would care to hear) have been inside that place…that strange little land that, in the tradition of the great Edgar Allan Poe, I have christened 'Nevermore'. When one gets inside that crazy little place that…well…essentially _is me, _they will never look at me the same. Never, never more.

That God forsaken mirror is the way I transport myself into that deranged little world, that sickening little community of freakish clones in multicolored cloaks that belong to me. That mirror stays away from me most of the time, I sometimes get sick looking at it. People think I'm creepy…but I don't scare anyone else nearly as much as I scare myself.

I remember how horrified I first was when Azar handed me that mirror and taught me how to use it. How heavy it felt in my little five-year-old hand and how confusing it was, how terrifying it was to see scores of little girls in cloaks just like me running among the dark trees of that barren, rocky landscape. The little girls who ran to me, who sent me away, terrified, running to the tall, safe form of Azar. She had taught me not to fear those girls, those girls who were me. She had taught me to befriend and understand each one. Particularly the one called Rage. The two of us never stopped having conflicts…I fought a neverending battle against her. And yet she was a part of me. I loved her just the same as I loved the others, despite who she was. She could not help that she was destined to feel nothing but rage, just as I could not help that I was destined to bring an end to the Earth. We can't change who we are, and we cannot condemn each other for the things that are written in our souls from the moment we come into this world.

It was Azar who taught me not to judge others harshly for the things they couldn't change. She was the one who taught me to look beyond the exterior, no matter how strange it may be, and see the beauty hidden underneath. She taught me that beauty lies in all things, and that hope for a brighter future is the only sure way to survive through the hard times in life. She taught me all that was necessary to control and eventually master my powers, gave me all the knowledge that I used as a Titan. She taught me how to be a superhero without even knowing that my future was to consist of being exactly that, and on top of it all, she taught me to be a person. Azar was my mother. My birth mother, Arella, was only a confused, terrified teenager at the time of my birth. She had nothing to do with raising me for most of my life. Azar was the one who taught me how to live, how to dream, and how to hope. Robin had to re-teach it later, but it was Azar who first planted the idea of hope into my brain. I can remember times with her so clearly it's as though they were only yesterday.

_Azar faces me, cross-legged on the floor, in a yoga position. I am copying her, trying to sit that way, hoping someday I will find that simple sense of balance that she gets so easily from chanting. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos," the words are becoming less foreign to me, more natural. I am six years old, and small at that. My white cloak is big enough for me to get lost in. I still can't focus clearly on the mediation, I've been thinking so much today about the things they say. The other Azarathian children whisper about me, speaking of a 'prosefy', something I just cannot understand. I watch Azar. She looks so serene, long ebony hair drifting placidly down to her elbows, resting along her bent arms, her shoulders, as she chants. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." I believe that Azarath was named solely after her, its ruler, instead of the opposite. She tells me that she is named after Azarath. I don't believe her. Surely such a beautiful place could only be named after my beloved guardian and teacher. She is truly a goddess to me, so all-knowing, she can do no wrong. I am her obedient, admiring pupil. _

_The red gem on her forehead glints in the sunlight that streams in through the large window of the temple. She says that someday, when my powers are completely mastered, everything I lay eyes on will be able to be called to my command, and the world will be my tool, any object I want will be my paintbrush. The air will be my canvas. She says I will get to wear a shiny gem just like hers. It will mark my status as a monk like Azar. A monk of the highest order in Azarath, a symbol of respect and honor. And the gem will also complete my journey to master my powers. I will be able to channel energy through it, and receive energy through it. It will tune my empathy skills to an even more advanced level. I just can't wait. I will be a monk, a high priestess of the Order, and the other kids will no longer whisper strange things behind my back. They will be proud of me like Azar is. It will happen 'when I am ready'. I hate not knowing when it will be. _

"_You're not concentrating on your meditation, Raven," Azar states. Her eyes remain closed. But she knows all. _

"_I know," I answer, wishing she couldn't always tell. "I'm just…thinking too much."_

"_Something is troubling you." _

"_Yes. I…Azar, who am I?" _

"_You are Raven, daughter of Arella and Trigon. But that's not the answer you want."_

"_No, it isn't. I mean…who **am** I? People are so kind to me, but…they say strange things that they think I can't hear. They talk about me…they say things I don't understand. What lies in my future that could make them whisper that way, Azar? You know it, I know you do. You have to tell me." _

_Azar finally opens her eyes, fixing the intense blue spheres on me. She has such overwhelming eyes. They knock you backward the first time she fixes you with that probing, powerful blue stare. "I suppose it is time you know the truth. The whole truth." Azar sighs, a gentle release of air, before she speaks again. "At the beginning of time, there were two people. A man called Adam and a woman called Eve. They had three sons. One of these sons, Cain, killed his brother, Abel. And for this terrible sin he had committed, he was banished to a dark, terrible place. And there he was found by Lillith, who you have met before. She was charged with giving him just punishment for his sin. And so he was given a curse. He was cursed to live forever, but the life would not be a pleasant, pure one. He would live solely upon the warm blood of humans. He was the first of what was called the Vampyre." _

_I listen to her intently, though I do not understand. "But what does this have to do with me, Azar?" _

"_Patience, child," she tells me with a slight smile. "You will see." and then she continues. "The Vampyres became a long line of these creatures, some turned into the horrible creatures by force, while others, lured by glittering promises of eternal life, went willingly. And as the line contined, it became distorted, as every species does over time. The Vampyre was the first of a breed of creatures called demons. Many strains of them existed, independently of each other. And one of these separate species of demons included a demon who eventually came to be the ruler of all demons, a demon named Trigon. While Vampyres walked the Earth, all other demons were banished to hell. And Trigon vowed that he would overturn this injustice to demons. _

_And so he bided his time. Thousands and thousands of years, and finally a young woman named Angela Roth, your mother, mistakenly summoned him. And, taking his chance, he impregnated her with his child. For his plan was that the child he fathered, who would be born to a human mother and therefore be born on Earth, or in some way connected to Earth, would serve as The Gem, a beacon of hope for all demons. Because that child would, after her sixteen birthday, was destined to fulfill the ancient prophecy that Trigon had set in stone shortly after the world began. She would become the portal to bring him to Earth, where the reign of the humans he despised so much would end, and the reign of the demons would begin. You are that child, Raven. You are the Gem. You are destined to bring an end to the reign of humans on Earth." _

_I sit in shock, staring at her, eyes wide. I simply cannot believe what I have just heard. "That…can't be true! It's so horrible!" I shake my head. "No way is it true." _

"_It is true," Azar assures me in her blunt, honest way of speaking. _

_I stand up, by body shaking. "What's the point, then? What's the point in all this training, all this getting ready…for a future I might as well not have!" I may only be a child, but I'm not stupid. I know there's no way I'm going to become a portal and live to tell about it. "What's the point? Why do you keep trying to help me grow up when **that's** what I'm destined to do?" _

_Azar has gotten to her feet and has bent down to my tiny height to put a hand on my shoulder. "Because I believe in you, Raven. I believe that someday, not matter what you are destined to do, you are going to do great things. You can't decide who you are, but you can decide what you become."_

"_You really think so?" I ask her, the fight draining out of my body, taking on the stance of a child listening to her adoring mother. She nods. "Why, though?" I can't help but ask. _

"_Because sometimes hope is all we have to hold onto," she replies. _

The memory washed over me like a cool breeze on a summer evening, refreshing despite the slight shiver it provokes. As I sat there, cross-legged as she had always sat, I couldn't stop floods of memories. They came rushing in like a tide of nostalgic whispered, lingering like stardust on the edge of my mind until I grabbed hold of them and pulled them in for a longer stay. The next memory that washed over me, pulling me into its warm, familiar center, was a far less pleasant one. I sat back and allowed it to fill me.

_Azar has never looked this way to me before. She has always been so strong, so untouchable. She has always been an unstoppable force. Nothing can bring her down. _

_And now here she lies in bed. I have never known her to sleep past five in the morning. She always forces me out of bed so early to begin training. But now she looks so weak. So vulnerable. Her normally vibrant black hair that seemed almost alive, tumbling in cascades of ebony whenever the breeze came up, lies limp and lifeless on the pillow, spread around her head like a pile of dead ribbons. Her hands, normally so steady, so sure, are shaking. Her skin is paler than usual. Her breath is coming in small, shaky gasps. _

_No one needs to speak. I can feel what's happening. I am a psychic. I felt it the instant I awoke this morning that something terrible was going to happen on this day. I could feel her distress. And now the feeling is so strong that it almost rips me apart from the inside out. _

_I am barely thirteen years old. She cannot do this. She cannot leave me. I have so much to learn, I have so much to share with her. She cannot go. I have only three years until the end is to come, and I am in no way prepared. She cannot just leave me in this huge, empty universe all alone. _

_My mother, Arella, Azar's closest friend, stands several feet behind me. She is silent, retaining a kind of desperate but elegant composure. She holds herself so very much like Azar. And yet tears are running down her face. _

_I reach up my fingertips and nervously prod the red gem that now graces my forehead. It has been there less than two weeks and already I am going to have to carry it alone. She **cannot **go like this. _

"_Azar…" my voice is softer than normal, its harsh monotone softened by raw tendrils of emotion that wrap around it. "You're going to be alright. Tell me you're going to be alright."_

_Azar's smile, however shaky it may be now, still never changes, and when she flashes it at me now, it hurts me almost more than the weakness that I can see in her now, though she still gives off powerful waves of her strength. We're all aware of her strength. You would have to be a fool not to see it. _

"_I'm an old woman, Raven. Oh no, not my body," she says, seeing my confusion. "My body never ages. I retain the same physical appearance I've had since the age of twenty-eight. But I am old, Raven. So very, very old. And I'm so tired. I have been alive for over four-hundred years." she gives me another smile. Her skin looks so pale, so ashen, so waxy, but her eyes, those vivid blue eyes that have watched all the progress I've made through my childhood with steady patience, those eyes that laugh at me through all her seriousness, those eyes where I find hope and friendship, are still just as luminous, just as alive, as the day she took me under her wing. "we all have to die sometime." _

_I try not to choke up. "But not you…just…not you. Not now. You have to live forever!" I am behaving as childish as I ever have. I don't care. I simply can't lose her. _

_Azar laughs, a rare thing. A tinkling sound that I can feel ringing in my throat. "No one lives forever, dear," she tells me. "Nothing but the sky and the water. I've had a long life. I've taught you what you need to know. Oh no, not all of it. But enough. Enough for you to pick up when I'm gone and know how to start." she pauses to clear her throat. Her voice is getting more and more shaky and soft. "My granddaughter will resume your training when I'm gone." she hold out her hand, and I take from her what she is attempting to hand to me; two golden rings with small red symbols along their bands. "Rings of Azar," she tells me. "They have some power against Trigon, if you ever need it." _

_I fight back tears. She has taught me to be strong, to be as untouchable, at least on the outside, as a stone. I don't want to cry and ruin what she has taught me as a coping mechanism. I would like nothing more right now that to sob, to throw myself into Arella's arms and never look out into the world again. But I don't. That's not who I am. That's not what I do. I'm Raven. "I'll go to Earth, Azar," I tell her. "I'll go to Earth I'll find some way to help people. I'm going to do good. I'll…I'll make up for what I'm going to do to them. I'll finish my training and then I'll go." _

_Azar nods weakly. She is fading fast. There she is, my mentor, my guardian, my friend, fading before my eyes as though someone has decided to fast-forward the death of a flower at the beginning of autumn. It hurts almost too much to bear. "That's my Raven," she tells me softly, raggedly, and I think, it's a wonder her voice is still audible, with how labored her speech is becoming. "Just…promise me…one thing." words are starting to hurt her. I can feel her pain as clearly as though it is my own. _

"_What is it?" I ask, jerking back the tears that wait on my lashes to gallop in a liberating, bitter marathon down my cheeks and take swan dives off of my chin. _

"_I want you to promise me, especially when you're on Earth, that you will find **yourself**. And that you won't ever stop searching, or stop growing. Or stop hoping."_

_I'm not exactly sure what she means, but I nod furiously, sending my hair flying around my head. "I promise, Azar. I promise." _

_Azar speaks again, though this time so faintly I can barely hear her. The words have such pained effort behind them, such a long, tired struggle to produce each syllable. With my empathy, I suffer with her, feeling the mental pain as deeply as she does, the knife that cuts and twists. "You can do anything, Raven. Anything." _

_And then, as suddenly as she came crashing into my life to force me into training for a future that was uncertain, she is gone. Gone. Just like that. Suddenly, my Azar is an empty, lifeless shell. A mere corpse, lying with her brilliant blue eyes still staring at me, starting to gloss over, to lose their lively intensity. I can't grasp her being dead until I try to read her thoughts. I don't even hear the electric buzzing of her screening the thoughts from me. I just hear nothing. Dead silence like never before. And then it hits me, and for the moment, my whole world is gone. She is dead. And there is no brining her back. _

_It is several hours before I return to my room. When I do, I step in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors. I take them to my hair, my long, long violet hair, cutting it into a simple, tapered bob that I always wore my hair in as a child. Chin-length, easily manageable. And then I stare into my reflection, taking in my new, unfamiliar appearance. I look less vulnerable, stronger, more unapproachable. "I will not disappoint you, Azar," I say to the glass. "I'll go to Earth, and I'll help. I'll make up for the horrible thing I'm going to do. And I'll find myself." I say. And I know then that no matter what happens next, the journey ahead of me is in no way easy. I'm not even sure if it's in any way possible. But I hope it is. After all, sometimes hope is all we have to hold onto. _

I sat on my bed, allowing all traces of the moonlight-drenched memory to wash away. These memories, flooding me. I was exhausted. My past was trying to kill me. But I knew what I had to do. Sighing, full of dread, I stood and walked across the room and stopped in front of my table. I picked up the strange, elaborately carved hand mirror that Azar presented me with so many years ago, and held it tightly in one hand. I gazed down into my reflection, bracing myself, and then finally, that hand , black and red and familiar, came for me. And I was pulled head-first into the world that I alone could understand.

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**More soon. (:**

"_**Life is full of disappointments. You are one of them." -Madame Rouge **_


	11. Pieces of Me

**Disclaimer: No!**

**Here's the next chapter! Sorry it took so long! Enjoy (: The next update will come sooner. **

**This chapter is dedicated to Regrem Erutaerc**

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Nevermore is the kind of place that, unless I am undergoing a major emotional crisis, rarely changes. When I got there on this particular occasion, it was no different. The sky, as always, was a deep black, pitted with crimson stars and clouds, and the occasionally floating rocky island high off among the clouds. Trees without leaves stood here and there, branches harsh, not softened by the lacy intricacy of tiny twigs branching off on the ends. The trees reached for the sky like the grasping hands of a corpse, skin parted from the bones and exposing the raw, angular bones beneath. The air was its usual temperature, comfortable to the point where you could forget it had a temperature at all. The ground was cracked, dry, and dead beneath my feet, unable to sustain any earthly life, or any life at all, besides those skeleton trees.

The air around me was silent and thick with the inaudible whisperings of things long passed, but nonetheless empty. I stood still, watching the dead landscape warily. I knew that the lonely, almost beautiful peace would not last for long now that I had arrived.

As usual, the first girl to my side was Joy. She didn't _come _to my side, she merely appeared. Her cloak was a bright, almost sickening bubblegum pink and her hair, like mine and that of all the others, was violet. She greeted me with a bubbly, "Hello, Raven!" and a girlish giggle. I nodded in reply as the others began to manifest themselves.

The second to appear was Timid, in her gray cloak, and she latched herself onto me and wouldn't let go. She was trembling and the ghosts of whimpers were coming from her throat. "Big Raven!" she said, sounding like a puppy that has been kicked one too many times. "Rage won't stop picking on me!" her childlike voice quivered as much as her body did, and I sighed and hugged her back in a motherly sort of way, patting her short violet hair.

"Rage, leave Timid alone," I instructed, sending a challenging look over Timid's shoulder at the girl in the crimson cloak, sporting four matching crimson eyes. She gave me one of her death stares back, which was nothing new, since that was her normal expression. You learn to live with that sort of thing. There was nothing cruel about Rage that wasn't natural. There was nothing she could do about her nature. Just as there wasn't much I could do about mine.

"You haven't visited in a while," Rage said coolly, and when her mouth opened it revealed her small pointed fangs.

"It's true," Timid whimpered in her feeble, kittenish voice. "You never come to see us anymore." she was clinging to the hem of my cloak as though she was afraid I would disappear into thin air if she didn't keep holding onto me. "Do you hate us?"

I sighed and had to work extremely hard to conceal my irritation. We went through this time and time again. "No, Timid, I don't hate you," I assured her. She looked at me with those huge, perpetually quivering violet eyes and I nodded to cement the idea into her skull. "Do not ask me again." I didn't say it harshly, but Timid quivered like I had beaten her. I gave up on the matter.

"So, what _is_ the deal with you never visiting anymore?" asked Brave, the gutsy little Me in a green cloak, Timid's constant companion. "And what do you want now?"

I looked around before answering her to see exactly who I would be dealing with today. There was Knowledge in her bright, sunny yellow cloak with her glasses perched on the end of her nose, there was Joy, Timid, Brave, and Rage, of course. There was Affection, looking particularly radiant today, her huge violet eyes sparkling, her purple cloak swirling around her feet like the delicate petals of a flower. There was Rude, who kept belching quietly in Knowledge's ear, her orange cloak covered in dust around the hem. There was Hope, looking angelic in her cream-colored cloak with that one-with-the-world Robin-esque smile on her face. And Compassion, with her pure white cloak that seemed to give off a glow, and Guilt, with her deathly black cloak. Self-Loathing was there also, looking different from the others with her long hair and mostly ripped-away leotard, and several of the Mark of Scath burning conspicuously on assorted places on her body, along with jagged words carved into the flesh.

One wound among the old ones struck me particularly. The word 'PERVERT', carved across Self-Loathing's forehead. It was nothing but a word of scabs, now. But there were other Words that I still felt, and she had to carve over them again and again to prevent their healing until I could let her Words go. Some of them were still bleeding. 'PATHETIC', 'UGLY', 'COWARD' were particularly fresh and deep, and I could see a sliver of white bone matter showing amongst the letters of the pair of Words carved into her forearm, 'THINGS CHANGE' where fresh, dark blood still seeped, curdling on her pale flesh, matting the tiny, fine hairs of her arm together. It was a Word she had to carve over at least several times a day. The only Word that wasn't directed toward myself.

I hated myself for making her put all those words there, but I was sure hating myself for it was just making it worse. Hate was why she put those words there. My hate. My hate for myself. It was her destruction. Until I could learn to love myself, she would continue to be the victim of my hatred. It made me feel weak thinking about it. Weak and sick and terrified. It made me feel a biting pain in my stomach when I looked at her, and I averted my eyes.

"_Well_?" Brave asked me, raising an eyebrow at me and thankfully jarring myself out of my unpleasant thoughts.

"I'm beginning to think you really _do_ hate us," Rude said with a smug grin. Timid burst into tears and hurled herself at the hem of my cloak, clutching the dark blue folds and wailing.

"Please don't hate me," she whimpered softly. Brave walked over and pulled Timid to her feet, and I sighed and patted her on her gray-cloaked shoulder.

"Don't think about me hating you anymore!" I said, a little more fiercely than I meant to. "I_ don't_!"

Timid nodded, brushing tears out of her eyes. "Okay," she whispered meekly, giving something close to a smile.

"Alright, I just haven't been here to visit in a while because I've been a bit preoccupied," I said. "I've had a lot on my mind."

Joy giggled, and I sent her a look. "What?" I asked her, though I could pretty much tell what she was giggling about.

"Affection told us aaaaaaall about Garfield," Brave said, and I groaned. "And how you wanna-"

"Just don't talk about it," I muttered, running a hand over my face.

"Why not? It's reality, isn't it?" Knowledge pointed out.

"Okay, you're not exactly one to talk to me about reality. You only exist inside my mind," I argued.

"She has a point," Affection told Knowledge. And then I felt stupid for arguing with my own damn emotions.

"Look, so I want him. So maybe I think about getting into his pants sometimes…so what?" I asked, trying to undermine the enormity of the situation.

"It's a normal part of life. You're growing up, Raven," Compassion patted me on the shoulder. "It's only natural that your lustful side should awaken at some point. That's what's happening. It's nothing negative. Everyone experiences sexual awakening at some point."

This wasn't something I wanted to hear.

"It could be something else. It could be anything else. Maybe I'm just losing my mind," I argued. Not because I didn't believe what Compassion was saying, but because I wanted them all to shut up about the subject. I didn't care that they were, in a sense, me. _I _didn't even like talking about it, and I certainly didn't want mouths I couldn't control talking about it.

Brave placed a hand on my shoulder. "You're just gonna have to accept it for what it is! So you've got some new feelings. Big deal! It's part of life!" she clapped me on the back. "Hoo-ah! Our little Raven is growing up."

"It seems like only yesterday she was still wetting the bed. Oh, wait, that was last night…but it's a different kind of wetting now," Rude declared. I had to be very, very contained and remind myself that she couldn't help the way she was programmed to act as my crass emotion, and it was all I could do to stop myself from throttling her. Sometimes I wondered if I had more anger issues than…Rage. But I did manage to push my violent irritation out of my mind and focus.

"So you're telling me this is _normal_," I asked, directed my question toward Brave, Compassion, and Knowledge. "You're saying it's a _natural thing_ for me to feel all of these freaky, completely wrong-seeming desires toward someone who, until a few months ago, I could barely stand to be in the same room with?"

"Everyone experiences these feelings at some point," Knowledge told me, giving that all-knowing but not at all pompous grin of hers. Compassion had her hand on my shoulder again.

"It's perfectly normal," she assured me. "Just let it happen as it happens."

"But what am I supposed to _do_ about it?" I asked them, starting realize that coming in here for answers had been pointless. It was almost as bad as sitting there and asking myself for answers.

"You don't _do _anything about it!" Brave said, her booming voice a bit grinding on my nerves. "That's the _point_!" she ruffled my hair in a bolstering, fatherly way. "Life throws you things, and you make the most of them! You're not supposed to _know_ what's coming at you! What would be the point in living if there were no surprises? Life's all about taking chances and finding out what happens next."

"Life is about _living_. It doesn't matter if you know what happens next." I was getting more than a little annoyed with them and their useless attempts to help. "Coming here was a waste of time, all you're going to do is broadcast greeting card wisdom at me for the next three hours."

At this point Timid burst into tears again and I realized I'd been out of line. "I'm sorry, Timid," I told her, patting her on the shoulder and shaking my head. "I didn't mean it. I'm glad I came to see you, really I am." and Timid's tears stopped flowing. As much as I hated to admit it, as they were creatures of my own mind, I was their master. All of them, even the more disagreeable ones, were constantly (though often secretly) struggling to win my approval. Some of them didn't seem to understand that no matter what happened, they were me, and I had to accept them unconditionally. And so when I said something, it was taken into consideration, though most of them disagreed with me a large portion of the time. Timid, however, believed every word that I (or anyone, for that matter) said.

"I'm sorry we can't come up with better answers," Wisdom told me, straightening her thick, round-rimmed glasses. The bright yellow of her cloak contrasted dramatically with the dull gray of Timid's, who was standing beside her now. "But what we know is limited. We know things that you know but don't yet realize or acknowledge, but if you don't know something, neither do we." she was reminding me of this unnecessarily. I would come to them a lot more if they could help me sort out problems that happened outside of me.

"I know, and it's okay," I said, reassuring all of them as best I could. "I'm sorry, I was being too demanding of all of you." it was sometimes hard to stay nice when I visited, but when I was conscious about it, I retained a kind of compassionate wistfulness. Everything that I went through, they went through too, and I was never alone in Nevermore. "I have to go back to the real world now," I confessed guiltily. "I need to get to bed. I don't want to be tired if we have an emergency tomorrow." It was almost hard to believe that for a long while after first being presented with the mirror, I had been terrified of them. But they weren't frightening. Even Rage had her own good points to offer, and as strange as it seemed (maybe it was some of Robin's unshakable belief in people rubbing off on me), I believed she was really good at heart, past all the darkness and anger that her soul was woven of, past the influence of Trigon.

Though Timid filled me with pity and Self-Loathing made me want to wince with guilt, Rage was the one who pained me the most to look at. That face with the four crimson eyes, the one that filled me with loathing whenever I was angry and looked into a mirror, was what she was faced with all day. Every day, she had to bear the burden of my anger, my rage, my violence. My dark, malevolent side ruled her, and there was nothing she could do to change the role she had been born into. Every violent feeling, every angry thought, every surge of my temper, it was all channeled through her. Though she only existed inside my mind, she was very real to me, as real as any of the others, and she constantly had to carry my cross for me. It was her sole purpose in life. But she was always quiet and never complained about it. She knew nothing else, it was true, but there was something almost noble about the way she carried her burden silently.

Today was no exception. She stood there among the others silently, and had not said a word since the beginning of the visit. It was strange, how she was supposed to harbor only hatred, and yet she still appeared to see me when I visited. They all did, which surprised me, because I could not imagine ever being so loyal to someone as they were.

"I'll come back to visit sooner this time," I promised them as I prepared to leave, turning in the direction of the huge doorway shaped slightly like my own head. "Rage, leave Timid alone this time, and Rude, try to stop burping in everybody's ears for a bit, okay?" I was pulling my almost involuntary mother act as I left. "Goodbye." and with that, I strode out through the doorway, and with a swirling of black and red air and warm wind whipping my hair, I was deposited back into reality.

**XXX**

Back on my bed once more, my dark room was comforting and welcoming. The air was warm, and a full moon filled the room with the soft glow that bounced off of all my strange possessions and lit the more foreboding shadows. I've never been the biggest fan of sleeping in my room when it's pitch black, contrary to popular belief, and so this soft light was welcome. The illuminated clock beside my bed said 11:00. It was still early, and I had the whole night to sleep off my sudden wave of tiredness. But as I settled down under my warm covers, I became aware of a strange, eerie sensation. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Call it intuition or bring up the fact that I'm a psychic, or say I have a Miss Clevelle complex, whatever you like. But one way or another, I knew something simply wasn't right.

It was only 11:00. And the room was quiet. There was only the soft hum of Jump City across the water. Normally, Robin would stay up until one or even two AM, and never turned in any earlier than midnight. But there was no soft guitar music filtering in from his room tonight. There was nothing. Only a dead, ghostly silence. I was alarmed. Maybe I was just being overprotective again, but it just didn't seem natural for it to be this quiet so early. And so once more I was out of bed and out into the hallway. I knocked on Robin's door, and when he didn't answer, I poked my head in. The light was on, but the room was empty.

Still concerned, I headed down the hallway, the darkness pressing me as I left behind the rectangle of light that Robin's still-open automatic door had left. I hated the Tower's hallways at night. They were so large and dark and seemingly endless, stretching boundlessly in every direction like the threads of a spider's web. I wanted to go back to my room, but some strange force propelled me forward, telling me that when I found Robin safely in the living room on the mainframe computer doing some late night research, I could go back to bed. And so I pressed on.

Finally, the dreary hallway was broken by a turn which led to the stairs, stairs that would lead me down to the living room. I turned and approached the stairs, but when I reached the top what I saw made me stop dead in my tracks.

It was Robin.

He lay sprawled-eagled at the bottom of the stairs, arms and legs splayed out at odd angled. My stomach dropped onto the floor, and my breathing began to race, a million panicked thoughts charging through my brain all at once. But what really made my pulse quicken and my legs lock and tremble was how still he lay at the foot of those stairs so far below me, and the halo of dark liquid pooled on the floor around his ebony-haired head.

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"**I'm the fear that keeps you awake, I'm the shadows on the wall, I'm the monsters they become, I'm the nightmare in your skull." -Voltaire **


	12. Boundless

**Disclaimer: I don't own TT. Really…I don't. **

**Yep, the next chapter's up! Sorry to keep people waiting after a cliffhanger. I'll make up for it, I promise. And yet again, just so people don't freak out, this is Robin and Raven _friendship. _**

**If anyone can give me some tips on how to write Madame Rouge's accent, that would be really helpful. Thanks! **

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My heart pounded deafeningly in my ears, and the first thing I became aware of was that the feeling was coming back into my legs. Moving quickly, desperately, I ran down the stairs, running almost on autopilot, rushing to Robin's side and dropping to me knees. I knelt in the warm liquid that was pooled around him and choked back sobs that were tearing me to pieces inside.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god! Please don't be dead, Robin! Please don't be dead!" I said aloud as I grabbed his shoulders, turning him onto his back as tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. He was my best friend. He was the only person who really understood me, who really opened up to me. He was everything to me, and here he was, lying on the floor and not moving, and it was enough to break my heart. How was I supposed to live without him? And why the _fuck _did these things have to happen! I just couldn't understand.

My hand flew to Robin's neck, two fingers pushing gently into the little hollow below his jawbone where I would be able to feel for his pulse. And, miraculously, as though suddenly fate loved me and the world that had always screwed me over had suddenly decided to grant me one wish, I felt his skin shudder in what was unmistakably a heartbeat. And then it beat again, and again. I tide of relief washed through me, leaving me weary. And it was then, after the panic subsided and my world righted itself again, I realized the strong smell of coffee that hung in the air. A closer look at the liquid I squatted in revealed that it was indeed coffee, and the chipped mug lying empty on the floor a few feet away made the fact more concrete. So Robin had indeed slipped on the stairs, but the consequences were nowhere near as dire as I had first suspected. He was merely unconscious. I could feel my world begin to right itself and come back together, while only seconds ago it had been shattered into pieces. After the terror of the moment was gone, after only the relief remained, I was so worn out by having such a violent array of emotions in a span of ten seconds that I wanted to lie down and sleep, but I couldn't just leave Robin there on the floor.

I managed to get Robin off the ground by using my powers, and then I carried him (with some difficulty) back up the stairs, down the hallway, and into his room. I had never imagined someone so small and wiry would weigh so much, but it may have just been because I was so extremely exhausted. He felt like a sack of cement in my arms. I lugged him over to his bed, and lowered him into it as gently as I could, pulling his blanket up over him and tucking the edges up under his chin. God, I felt protective of him right then. If anyone had burst in with intent to hurt him at the moment, I really doubt they would have survived, or even stayed physically intact. At that moment, he seemed so peaceful and innocent, almost like a child. There was a bump on his forehead, probably from his fall. It was swollen and already purpling. It made me wince.

I reached out a hand to heal the painful-looking wound, and as my fingertips brushed Robin's skin, I was suddenly hit with a blast of something strange and yet familiar. My mind was being bombarded with hordes of images, flashes of motion and color, incoherent babblings. Struggling to calm myself down, I centered my mind around these images and flashes, and they slowly melded into one steady image, one moving scene. Knowing there was nothing to do to fight it, I braced myself and allowed the all-too-familiar sensation of being pulled into a vision set over me, and I was whirled mentally into another world, the images before my eyes crisp and clear as though I were watching the scene unfold before my eyes.

I was staring at the depths of the Brotherhood's main base. I had been here before, but not like this. Rather than being populated by hordes of Titans in the process of kicking some serious bad guy ass, it was relatively empty. Hot Spot and Wildebeest were standing atop one of those horrible shelves along the walls, bodies sheathed in ice, as mine had eventually been, too. I took this all to mean that this was before the rest of us had been captured.

Robin was standing with his wrists in large metal shackles apparently similar to the ones that Starfire had been bound with on the first day we had met her. His shirt had been removed, and goosebumps were standing up on his skin from the chill of the room, with its large freeze ray sitting against one of the walls, ready to be put into action. Several of the most prominent members of the Brotherhood stood before him; The Brain, Mallah, and Madame Rouge, and also present were some of our regular criminals that I recognized. Mallah and The Brain stood slightly back from Madame Rouge; it was clear that at the moment, The Brain had put her in control of the situation. And for good reason. Rouge did indeed seem to be enjoying her role in the situation. There was a very sinister smile on her lips as she stared at the Boy Wonder, a smile that would have made anyone else cringe.

"I'll never tell you anything," Robin said fiercely, fixing Rouge with his usual determined stare. She gave a small, cruel laugh. Her ruthlessness was legend, and anyone in their right mind would have been terrified by then. Robin wasn't showing any sign of fear, though. That was just how Robin was. There was a tiny, invisible layer of strength between his outer appearance and his emotions in serious situations, no matter how severe the emotional pressure was. Right now was no exception. He stood straight and stared Rouge head on, steady rather than shaking.

"Really, now?" Rouge asked, a small, mocking smile playing across her lips. "Vell that is just too bad. Perhaps I vill have to…persuade you." that sadistic glint in her eyes was almost too much to bear. She was so brutal and yet so sophisticated all at the same time, which just added to the terror at the thought of being at her mercy. Robin didn't flinch. He didn't speak. He only stared her straight in the face as though challenging her with his hidden eyes.

Rouge appeared amused at his determination. One hand on her hip, she spoke without a backward glance or even a gesture. "Red X, restrain him properly." Almost immediately, Robin's former alter ego in his signature suit moved forward, slipping behind Robin and grabbing him at two strategic points on the back of the neck with one hand. He had thrown Robin forward onto the floor before he could make a move and in about the amount of time it takes to blink he had one foot in the small of Robin's back to restrain him as he undid Robin's shackles. He pinned Robin's arms to the floor, and two tiny trapdoors opened to release two chains with manacles at the ends before closing once more, leaving the manacles clamped around Robin's wrists. He could only move each arm about a radius of six inches. Red X retreated to his place with the others. Robin knelt on the floor, restrained and looking indignant.

"You won't get away with this!" Robin pulled against the thick chains that bound his arms to the floor, but they remained solid. He looked like a drowning man flailing there, struggling against his impossibly thick restraints.

Madame Rouge gave a small, belittling chuckle. "I von't? You underestimate me, Robin."

Moving a little to the left, Rouge stopped before a large metal table that gave the eerie feeling of an operating room. Eyes scanning the flat table's surface, which was mostly obscured by various strange devices, it was clear she knew the element of power she had at the moment, and her eyes browsed the surface slowly, trying to prolong Robin's agony. Eventually she chose a large metal rod, bent to create a flat portion at the end. She sat this rod, flat end down, on a small round disk-like gadget, and turned several knobs on the disk. Then she turned her attention to a small contraption that looked a bit like a two-pronged fork, lifting it delicately between two fingers and flipping a small switch on the side. A beam of cold, blue, jerking light leaped up between the two prongs.

"I vill give you one more chance," Madame Rouge looked extremely threatening with a foreign glowing object in her hand. "Vhat are the coordinates?" I wasn't exactly sure what she was talking about (it seemed I had come in a little late), but whenever a serious villain uses 'coordinates' in a sentence, it's bound to never be good.

"I won't tell you anything," Robin said again, bracing himself for the worst. Madame Rouge stepped forward, leaning down a bit and dragging the glowing blue end of the device she held a little way across Robin's exposed chest. It cut as though it were hopelessly sharp steel, without so much as stalling as it tore the flesh. A trail of deep red blood slid down Robin's chest and dripped onto the floor. Robin didn't cry out. He didn't show any sign that he was in any pain. Horrified, I could barely bring myself to keep watching. But I was seeing this for a reason. I had to keep reminding myself.

"That vas just a sample," she told him, eyes glinting in an almost terrifying way. "I suggest you reveal vhat you are hiding before it becomes increasingly unpleasant for you." Robin only stared back. When it became clear that he wasn't going to respond, Rouge turned away, but then at the last moment she turned back and sliced a long cut down Robin's chest, eerily leaving an undoubtedly painful wound there in the shape of a cross that dripped blood down Robin's chest and stomach and onto the floor. The blood ran down in a sluggish, uninterested kind of way, and Robin looked down, watching it flow for a moment as though he were unaware of where it was coming from.

Rouge walked back to the table, switching off the beam on the device and setting it on the table, abandoning it in favor of a long, vicious-looking whip. She walked back toward him, brandishing it with relish. "Vhat are the coordinates?" she asked yet again, and Robin only stared back. I could feel the immense dislike coming from him in waves as though it were happening at that very moment. Upon receiving no answer, Rouge walked around behind Robin, standing there for a moment to lure him into a false sense of security before striking. When she did, leather hit flesh with a sickening impact, slashing a jutting red welt across Robin's back. I could see his jaw clench for a moment, and then he retained his normal face. "Vhat are the damn coordinates?" Rouge asked him. Robin didn't answer, and she struck him again, leaving another welt. And then she struck yet again, this time slashing a cut in the skin that began to bleed.

The hits began to come repeatedly, one after another, some with enough force to tear the skin. Some people did this for kinky pleasure, and watching this happen to Robin now, I couldn't understand how something so fucking demented could turn anyone on. I was on the verge of tears watching this happen and knowing I could do nothing about it. It was hurting him immensely, and Robin's pain became my pain. I could feel it searing across my own back as clearly as though the whip were hitting me as well as him. It was nearly unbearable, and Robin just sat there and took it like some kind of duty-bound lunatic. A brave one, but still a bit of a lunatic.

The whipping continued for what seemed like an eternity, until finally Rouge lowered her arm. She was growing visibly irritated with Robin's failure to answer her. Clearly this had not been in her plan. People like Rouge, though experienced they were in such matters, sometimes failed to leave margin for error. And it as grating on her. She threw the whip off to one side and grabbed a handful of Robin's hair, wrenching his head sideways. She pulled him forward by the hair, slamming his forehead into the floor. I was strongly reminded of Slade. "Vhat are the _fucking_ coordinates?" she was losing some of her composed cool, and it took her a moment to get it back. When she did, she slowly lifted his head upward by the hair, looking him straight in the face. "I can cause you pain beyond you vildest dreams. And just because I do not have the authority to do so does not mean I vill not."

Robin glared at her threat but refused to make any comment. Rouge, trying to keep her calm façade up, walked back over the table. The metal rod with the bent end was still sitting on that strange disk, and when she picked it up, I saw that the flat bent end was blowing a vicious orange-hot like a stove burner or hell's fire…any number of similes would have been appropriate. There was a moment of calm, strange and almost comforting. The tension mounted, and the air was thick. I could hear Robin's uneven, ragged breaths as his body, wracked with pain, attempted to cope with the situation. I was close to tears.

Rouge broke the stillness as she jammed the hot, flat end of the rod down against Robin's arm. The flesh seared, making a strange and terrible hissing sound, and Robin actually cried out slightly. Rouge's smile was obvious. She struck again, hitting his lower arm, and again, slamming the hot metal into his left shoulder. I could feel the metal burning my own skin through the vision, and I bit my own lip as the tears started to fall, from pain and terror and fear for Robin. Rouge slammed the rod down against Robin's leg, burning him through his tights. And then she took one last stab, pressing the rod into his stomach and leaving it there for a moment as he struggled to escape from the blinding pain, the pain that flashed through my own skull and left me feeling weak and cold. When Rouge finally pulled the rod away, Robin was breathing heavily and shaking. His body was ragged with pain and his emotions on the verge of collapse. But Madame Rouge knew no mercy when it came to her duty. The air was heavy with the odor of burning flesh, and I felt like vomiting.

The rod was safely returned to the table, dropped into a bucket of water. Rouge looked amused once more rather than irritated. "So, I cut you, I vhip you, I burn you, and yet you still vill not tell me vhat I vant to know. Perhaps I have underestimated you." she paused. "And yet, perhaps not. And suddenly the manacles around Robin's wrists unclasped themselves and they and their chains disappeared back inside the small trapdoors that opened in the floor. Rouge retrieved Robin's shirt and gloves, tossing them to him to put back on as she watched in some amusement. He was to weak from feeling so much pain at once to escape now. I watched Robin pull his shirt on, wincing with him as the material dragged against the mutilated skin of his back. He pulled on his gloves, and Red X clasped the shackles that covered his wrists and hands back on.

"It is time for you to join your friends Hot Spot and Vildebeest. I have no more use for you," Rouge said, dismissing him. And with that, she began leading him in the direction of the large freezing mechanism.

"It doesn't matter what happens to me or what you're planning," Robin said with obviously more bravado than he was capable of feeling at the moment, but the faith in his voice was genuine. "The Titans _will _stop you."

"Vill they now?" Rouge asked cruelly. "I look forward to seeing this." and she led him toward a point where in a matter of moments he would be nothing more than a Robin-shaped block of ice.

I was hit with another flash of images, and this time when they became one coherent image I was in Robin's bedroom, my hand still on his forehead. My body was trembling and sweat was running down my forehead and back, my stomach churning. I stood up and hurried over to Robin's trash can as the contents of my stomach made a frantic escape through my mouth. I managed not to get vomit in my hair as I retched into the small trash can for a few moments.

"Raven?" came a voice behind me, and I turned to see him sitting up in bed.

"Robin." I made a shaky beeline over to the bed. "I…I saw…that day, in the Brotherhood headquarters…" I sat down beside him. My body was shaking even more now as I relived a flash of the events in my head. "I saw what they did to you and…and…" I struggled to remain rational, but normal words slipped away into a kind of idiotic babbling. And then the tears. There was no hope in stopping my tears, I and let them fall and fell with them into a steady rhythm of manic sobs.

"Raven…" Robin sounded a bit surprised by this sudden outpouring of emotion, but it wasn't as though things like this hadn't happened before, and he kept his head about him. "It's okay," he touched my arm and I collapsed even further at this gesture of kindness. Robin shook his head slightly, as though not really sure what to do, and then pulled me into his arms, a bit awkward at first but getting over it quickly. "Really, it's okay." I hugged him back without hesitation and cried harder (if that was possible). I felt the need to lie down and I pulled him with me, causing his torso to stiffen in my arms for a moment. "It's okay," he told me again, relaxing a bit and patting my back in a motherly kind of way when he realized with relief I wasn't going to act like some kind of perverted freak.

I just kept sobbing into his chest, pressing my nose into the little safe hollow between his collarbones and crying as though the world were collapsing around me. It took a while before my sobs quieted enough for me to breathe properly, and I lifted my head to look at him. "I had a vision, and I saw everything." I choked again, and saw that he was crying too, to my great surprise. Not big helpless tears, but quiet tears. Tears that were working their way under the edges of his mask and making large, semi-transparent wet spots on the white parts of the mask. I glimpsed blue eyes before he pulled the mask off all together, startling me. But he had his eyes closed, and I saw nothing before he pushed his face closer, letting his tears mingle with mine just as his pain had mingled with mine in my vision. It felt a little better to know that I wasn't alone my tears, but what felt even better was crying in the first place, letting emotions out for once. It was quite a change, but a nice one, just to lie here and blubber and not care what Robin or anyone in the entire world thought about it.

I was wet and stuffy and disgusting from crying so much, but so was he. And so my best friend and I lay sobbing together over something no one else would ever understand until we finally cried ourselves to sleep.

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"**Here we are, going far to save all that we love. If we give what we've got, we will make it through. Here we are, like a star, shining bright on the world today. Make evil go away." -Noam**


	13. Relax

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything!**

**I am SO sorry about how long it took me to update! So unbelievably sorry! I've been having some terrible writer's block and some personal situations to take care of, and so I haven't been working on this story much. I promise I'll try to keep updates more regular from now on. Thanks guys for being so patient!**

**Note: This chapter was inspired by "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz, and therefore I had to pay some subtle homage to them in this chapter (; Listen to the song while you read. It enhances it, somehow. **

**This chapter goes out to coolcatjas, Brittany, and SparkyX, for being so cool. **

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I had to admit it seemed a bit strange to me to wake up in Robin's bed, but it was also nice in a way. Unlike my own room, I was not greeted by dark and menacing surroundings the moment I opened my eyes, but instead by the clean, somewhat sparse sight of Robin's room. Everything was always so organized, so precise, so no-nonsense in that room. A soft glow of sunlight warmed my face from the skylight overhead, making the flecks of dust in the air shimmer like fairy dust. I remembered Robin saying once how much he loved mornings, because everything felt so new and the fact that there was a brand new day to do with whatever you wanted before you made it seem almost magical. I was starting to see where he was coming with that now.

I sat up, pushing back Robin's blanket and blinking the last traces of sleep from my eyes. Robin was nowhere to be found. His room was empty, and there was a piece of paper sitting on the small table before his bed, which looked out of place because the table was otherwise empty. Shrugging and deciding that it would be alright to invade my best friend's privacy, I picked it up.

_Raven,_

_I went to Wally's apartment to go over some things about the band with him and Argent. I decided to leave you this so you wouldn't freak out when I was gone when you woke up, because I wasn't sure if you would still be worried. So don't worry, everything's fine. BB, Cy, and Star went to the movies. Hope you feel better. Get some rest, and take a shower, because I noticed that you still have some vomit in your hair. Just relax. I know what happened in the Brotherhood base was pretty disturbing, and I know that telling you not to worry is useless, but I really am fine. I promise. I'll be home later. Enjoy your morning alone, Rae. _

_-Robin_

Smiling, I left the note where I'd found it. He knew me too well. Under normal circumstances, I probably _would_ have freaked out finding him gone, but I found that after sleeping all night, I felt much better than I would have imagined. I decided to take Robin's advice and get into the shower. Or, to be more accurate, a bath. I was far too drained to think about standing up for an extended period of time. The hallway was quiet and dim as usual, with bright, dazzling patches of sunlight in the places where it was lined with windows. It was a bit refreshing not to hear the sounds of loud yelling about who was winning a video game coming from the living room.

I reached the bathroom feeling better than when I had left Robin's room, and upon inspecting myself in the mirror, I discovered chunks of dried vomit in my hair. Feeling a bit nauseas at the sight of it, I turned the water in the tub up as hot as it would go and, leaving my clothes on the bathroom floor, I waited for it to fill, and then hopped in. I couldn't hold back a squeak of shock when I realized at first how hot the water was, but as I became accustomed to it, I began to relax. The warmth of the water loosened sore muscles and washed away aches that showers over the past weeks hadn't, and I could feel my body relaxing into liquid looseness. Normally, it isn't safe for a superhero to completely relax, just in case a sudden hint of trouble should pop up. But this morning, with my communicator within arm's reach (if I sat up, that is) on the windowsill and with the majority of the villains frozen solid somewhere distant, I forgot about being a superhero. I wasn't a Teen Titan for that relaxing, blissful time. I was just Raven, a teenager who had spent the previous night crying and was now relaxing in a tub to soothe ordinary teenage aches and pains. It had been a while since I had felt like anything but a superhero who had to be on her toes at every minute, and in my calm, I ended up dozing off in the hot water.

When I finally came to my senses, I couldn't be sure how long it had been, but even in the hot water my body was starting to shiver. Scolding myself for being foolish enough to fall asleep in the tub, I hopped out and dried off quickly. I hurried down the halls in my towel, and changed into a fresh uniform when I reached my room. There was an unused, cold feeling in the room, and I could tell I hadn't slept there. There was a cold jasmine scent in the air and the air felt uninhabited. I spent a moment looking out the window before leaving.

The bright morning sunlight glittered on the soft blue waters of the bay, and the distant city's windows glinted. Something about the scene made me feel good, and when I reached the empty, sunny living room, I was in higher spirits than I had been in for quite a while. The room was peaceful, everything left just as normal, and that was when I realized just how much I enjoyed living here, how much I enjoyed being a Titan. I couldn't recall ever enjoying my life in Azarath as much as the life I had found with the Titans. There was just something…innately good about being a superhero, about helping people, about living with the other Titans, exhausting though it may be. I sat on the sofa pondering life for a while, and then meditated using the good things I felt to propel my thoughts to heaven and beyond. This went on until I was shaken out of my reverie by the sound of a knock on the front door.

I paused, cracking open on eye, still in my comfortable position hovering a few inches above the sofa, waiting. The knock came again, and I became certain that it wasn't just something imagined. Wondering who it could possibly be, I came back down to the floor and strode over to the door, pressing the button to allow it to open. Whoever was here had to either have superpowers or be an extremely talented swimmer, which was why we rarely got visitors we didn't know.

"Can I help you?" I started to ask, but my words stopped abruptly when I caught sight of the person standing on our doorstep, looking just as natural there as any of us would have.

She was dressed in simple, normal loose jeans and a simple, normal Gorillaz t-shirt, not looking at all out of place in my little super-powered world. Her long blonde hair was shoved back behind her shoulders to get it out of the way like it always was when she was eating. Her large blue eyes were watching me nervously, one peering out from under a strand of hair that hadn't quite made it out of the way. "Hi, Raven," she said quietly, letting the words settle into the small, uncomfortable space between us.

"Terra." it wasn't a question, it wasn't a greeting, it was just a statement, just a test to see how her name felt in my mouth after going unmentioned for so long. I paused, watching her warily, unsure of exactly what to say. "…come in."

She followed me into her old home, into the depths of Titans Tower's living room, as I walked like a robot, trying to sort things out inside my head as I moved. I settled myself on the sofa, and she followed suit, sitting down in her old favorite spot a few feet away, shifting uncomfortably for a moment.

"So, where's the schoolgirl uniform?" I asked, not exactly the perfect remark to make when she was already so uncomfortable. I have to admit now, I am quite a bitch when I feel like being one.

"It's a weekend," Terra answered softly, uncomfortably. And then instead of speaking immediately again, I let the silence settle between us like a large, awkward sheet. It didn't bother me, but I could tell it had her positively squirming. And I enjoyed it some level. Because, although I had spent so much time trying to find a way to reverse what had happened to her when she had defeated Slade, it had all been for Garfield. All because he had wanted her back. And a part of me was still pissed off as hell at her for how she had hurt Garfield…the first time, the most recent time, and all the times that might have happened that I didn't know about in between. Part of me enjoyed sitting here and seeing her being this ferociously uncomfortable.

But part of me wasn't that bitchy.

"So, why are you here?" I broke the uncomfortable silence.

Terra appeared to be gathering herself. I waiting patiently, watching the subtle expressions that came over her face. Deep down, I really didn't have anything against Terra, but on the surface, I was still hiding behind my anger at her so I wouldn't have to face the reality that she was actually back. It was something about me that I was having trouble with, especially around that time; facing problems and uncomfortable truths directly.

"Well, to tell you the truth…I guess I wanted to come here and tell you guys that I'm sorry," she explained. I watched her, not giving her any comment for the time being. "I'm sorry for everything I did to you guys. Siding with Slade was stupid…I shouldn't have ever done it."

"Why are you apologizing to me? Beast Boy is the one who really got hurt by it," I told her, a bit of snide bitchiness managing to find its way into the edge of my voice. I could tell this cut her a bit, and immediately I could feel the metallic taste of guilt working its way up my throat.

"I'm sorry, Terra. That was… a terrible thing to say," I managed to say quietly through my growing guilt. I dropped my eyes to the floor to avoid her stare.

"It's alright. It's true," her words were like needles tinkling delicately to the floor in a quiet room. The silence stretched for a another few minutes before I spoke. Only this time it wasn't because I felt like being a bitch. It was because I had nothing to say.

"Maybe it is, but it's in the past. It's not really any of my business what happened between you two. I shouldn't be sticking my nose into your life." I really was starting to wish I'd been able to control Rude's impulses now.

"It is your business," Terra said, very, very quietly.

"How's it my business?" I wasn't trying to be irritating, I genuinely wanted to know.

"Because you…care for Beast Boy. Probably more than I ever did. Even when he and I were…you know…together….I could feel it. Your feelings for him always outweighed mine. Maybe that's why I agreed to go out with him in the first place… because I knew if I didn't, you two would choose each other, and I'd be alone again…" Terra was starting to shake a bit, barely noticeable, but my enhanced demon vision was able to detect the slightest movement from her.

"What do you mean, my feelings for him?" I tried to pretend I had no idea what she was talking about. But it was useless. I had never noticed it, but I suppose to others who had romantic feelings for Garfield, I was as transparent as glass. I suppose that for Terra, who also had feelings for him, my cold act toward him was as easy to see through as anything. It was about then that I started to feel completely pathetic. "I don't have any…feelings for him."

Terra gave a small smile. "Of course you do, Raven. Maybe even you didn't realize it back then, but for me, it was obvious. And that's what it's always been about, even though I doubt either of you have ever even noticed it. It's always been about you two choosing each other. It's what it always comes down to."

"I…" I was a bit nonplussed by this. Words became fat and thick in my mouth and were too heavy to slide out between my lips.

"It's okay, Raven. I already know you like him. Denying it isn't going to change that."

"But I.." I trailed off. That look on her face told me that there was no way I was going to get out of this one. She had changed in all the time since I'd seen her, but she still knew me. And so I gave it up. I'd come to find that giving up was easier than fighting when I was talking to one of the Titans (and I suppose Terra still counted as one, since she had, of course, been one of us). "Okay, maybe I do. But how did you…know?"

Terra grinned. "You always looked at him with that certain look on your face, and no matter how hard you tried to pretend that you hated him, no matter how cold you were toward him, no matter how many times you pushed him away, there were those little moments where you let your true feelings show, and it was pretty obvious."

I groaned, shaking me head. "I was that obvious? I didn't even think I had feelings for him back then."

"Just a little obvious," Terra told me, and we fell to silence again.

"So did you seriously come just to say you were sorry?" I asked her. She was picking at the sleeve of her t-shirt, and looked up when I spoke.

"Pretty much. I've been feeling really guilty ever since I… came back."

I nodded. And then I gathered myself. "I'm sorry to bring this up, Terra, but why did you pretend to be someone else when Beast Boy saw you?"

Terra was pulling at a thread on her jeans now, a sure sign of discomfort, but there was no way I was going to let her get out of this one. I sat in silence and waiting with relative patience for her to answer. It took her a moment to collect her words. "I guess… it was just easier than… dealing with it. It was easier to pretend it wasn't real and try to push him away again than to actually deal with everything that it made me feel, all the memories that seeing him brought back. It was easier to hide than to let it all come back." she looked troubled. I realized about then that we had more in common than I had ever noticed.

"I understand," I told her. "Sometimes it's easier to push everything away and deal with it…" I took a moment to think. "But it doesn't mean it's healthy."

"I know," Terra sighed. "But sometimes it's just so hard to want to deal with anything when you can just run away… but I guess you've got to face everything sometime." she was picking at her clothes again. I'd never really noticed her do it before today. Maybe she'd developed new nervous habits since I'd last seen her. She did seem different, in some subtle way, as though going through everything she had gone through had left its faint mark on her. She was less effervescent, a bit more withdrawn, quieter, more cautious with her words. She just sat there, pulling at the fabric of her shirt, pulling off imaginary specks of lint. After a while, when I thought the discussion was over, Terra spoke again. "So…you seriously don't hate me?"

This caught me a bit off guard. "What?"

"After all I've done…after I screwed so much up for you guys…and you're not acting like you hate me…it's hard to believe."

I sighed. "I don't hate you, Terra. Sure, some part of me still wants to be angry at you for hurting Beast Boy, but I guess we've all got to let go of the past sometime. What would I gain out of hating you?"

"It might make you feel good?" Terra suggested.

I shook my head. "True, it might, but there's no point in hating someone because of the past. I've got to stop being so damned immature, anyway." a pause. Terra looked a bit skeptical for a moment, as though maybe she shouldn't believe me, and finally she seemed to come back to life after a moment of dead silence.

"So…friends?" she asked, holding out a hand. It took a moment for me to determine that she was serious, and when I did, I hesitated quite a bit before shaking it.

"Alright, then. Friends."

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**More soon! (Hopes the Terra hates are recovering well from their spasms of loathing and gives them hugs).**

"**My dreams, they have to kiss me, 'cause I can't get sleep." -Feel Good Inc. **


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